Como Se Dice 'Realignment'?
Immigration And Trucking Spur Bush's Hispanic Outreach
By HOWARD FINEMAN AND ARIAN CAMPO-FLORES | NEWSWEEK

ere's this summer's trend in politics: Spanish lessons. Republican Rick Perry, George W. Bush's successor as governor of Texas, could barely sound-bite his way through a tamale at Cinco de Mayo. So he enrolled in two weeks of total-immersion Spanish at a hacienda in the mountains of central Mexico. Not to be outdone by a GOP desperate to woo Latino votes, the entire lobbying department of the AFL-CIO starts lessons in Washington this week. They were inspired by a festive, Latin-style labor conference in L.A. featuring an address by the effortlessly bilingual foreign minister of Mexico. "It will be fun to learn, but also necessary," says Peggy Taylor, Big Labor's legislative chief.

It doesn't take a cientifico to decode the game plan devised by Bush strategist Karl (Carlos) Rove. From visits to the pope to speeches in Spanish, from buddying up with Mexico's president to championing his country's trucking industry, Bush aims to win the hearts and votes of America's salsa moms and dads. Now the nation's largest minority (35 million), Latinos are the prize in the defining battle of politics in the new millennium. Texas-bred and equally uncomfortable in English and in Spanish, Bush has a real crossover appeal, Democrats ruefully admit. "This is not pandering," Miami pollster Sergio Bendixen says he told Hill leaders. "This is Bush going all out to conquer the Hispanic electorate."

The Bush outreach is real, but so are the risks. Some 70 percent of Latinos are Roman Catholic. They paid respectful attention to Bush's visit to the pope. But the issues that generated headlines in Rome--abortion, stem-cell research--aren't top concerns for many of the new citizens Bush wants to reach. Education, health care and unemployment are, and Democrats remain ahead on them with Hispanics. "These are people who learn their politics at work on Monday, not in church on Sunday," says Richie Ross, a Democratic consultant in California.

Halfway between bread and faith, the GOP thinks it has a winning emotional issue: discrimination, a leading concern among Latinos. Bush and other leading Republicans are trying to show solidarity by backing the right of Mexican trucks to haul goods in the United States, as is called for under NAFTA. Foes of free-range trucks--most of them Democrats and Teamsters union allies--harbor "an anti-Mexican, anti-Hispanic attitude," charged GOP Senate leader Trent Lott, whose sound bites were featured (in translation) on Univision and Telemundo network news. Democratic leader Tom Daschle was "perplexed and saddened" by Lott's attack--a sure sign it was working.

The momentous issue for the GOP--for both parties--is what to do about the estimated 8.5 million illegal aliens in the United States, 4.5 million of them Mexican. Bush insiders first floated the idea of "regularization" for 3 million Mexicans. There was jubilation among Mexicans--but resentment among naturalized immigrants, jealousy among other nationalities and apoplexy in the GOP right. Bush later stressed his opposition to "blanket amnesty," but said he might favor a program for "guest workers" of all nations. But most Mexicans are wary of a piecemeal approach. "It's the whole enchilada or nothing," Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda told Hispanic journalists. Bush hopes to choose a policy before Mexican President Vicente Fox's state dinner in early September.

In the meantime, Bush risks a bidding war with Democrats, who are free to call for opening the floodgates. Why? Because the AFL-CIO, seeing its ranks dwindle and its Latino membership rise, has dropped its longstanding opposition to amnesty. A tide of illegals turned voters will, like other impoverished arrivals, favor Democrats, at least in the first generation. And legalizing them could offend the very same entrepreneurial (and naturalized) Hispanics the GOP is trying to woo in the suburbs. "Rove is a moron," declares Dan Stein of FAIR, an anti-immigration group. Maybe so, but Carlos has a superb track record thus far, and a boss who can speak for himself--in Spanish.
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