Thread: Are Texas' Hispanics Ready to Go Democrat?

Are Texas' Hispanics ready to go Democrat?

Voting bloc has grown, but it isn’t easy to categorize

By JOE HOLLEY
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
April 3, 2010, 10:30PM

Is this the year? The year that the state's soon-to-be-majority minority group begins to exert the power and political influence reflective of its formidable numbers? The year that long-beleaguered Texas Democrats climb aboard the demographic express and ride out of the political wilderness?

The handy metaphor — now cliché — is of the drowsy Goliath that awakens, takes note of its own strength and votes Democratic en masse. The party has been waiting for nearly 20 years. Even though Hispanics make up nearly half the state's population and tend to vote Democratic, Bill White (governor), Linda Chavez-Thompson (lieuÂ*tenant governor), Hector Uribe (land commissioner) and their fellow Democrats with statewide aspirations may still be waiting come November, many experts say.

Despite the numbers, the Hispanic vote may never be the cohesive and reliable bloc the party needs to dye the reddest of red states blue. Instead of a slumbering giant, a more pertinent metaphor may be that of a brilliant Fourth of July firework arcing into the night sky. When the firework reaches its apex, to the Democrats' dismay, it branches into multiple voting patterns. The Hispanic vote may eventually be as difficult to categorize as the Italian vote or the Irish vote.

That growing diversity is reflected around the dinner table when his extended family gets together, says the Rev. T.J. Martinez, a Jesuit priest who heads Cristo Rey Jesuit College Preparatory School of Houston. A Brownsville native, Martinez says that his father, a second-generation Texan, is a yellow-dog Democrat, while his nieces, more socially conservative, “are open to other ways of understanding politics, other ways of seeing the world.â€

In Florida some Cubans are. Gloria Estefan and husband Emilio are meeting with Obama and are involved in a $30,000 fund raiser. This has got the Cuban community angry as many feel Obama is the next Castro. The article in the Miami Herald had a war in the comments section between the Cuban.

Here we go again with the if you're against illegal immigration, you will lose the hispanic vote! Really? Well I'm against illegal immigration and I don't see it as a latino only issue.

The people who are pushing this lie are usually ones who have illegal aliens in their families or profit from illegal immigration. I know plenty of voters who are hispanic and they want enforcement, not amnesty!

Votes are too important to squander, and unless the ballots are only in English, that means the voter has no real understanding of the issues and what effect they can have on their state and country. Ethnicity and heritage should stay out of the political and governmental process. You are an American (hopefully) to be able to vote. This is as stupid as getting exit polls from folks by the color of their t-shirts at the polls.
And what about the Russian-Irish-Americans who are black and Bhuddists? Do they not deserve consideration?

Originally Posted by swatchick

In Florida some Cubans are. Gloria Estefan and husband Emilio are meeting with Obama and are involved in a $30,000 fund raiser. This has got the Cuban community angry as many feel Obama is the next Castro. The article in the Miami Herald had a war in the comments section between the Cuban.

Most of the Cubans in Florida still can remember what it is like living in a communist country. Perhaps if the Estefans are such big fans of communist dictators they can gather up all their money and move back to Cuba so Castro can take it all from them.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/01/1 ... obama.html

BY LESLEY CLARK
lclark@MiamiHerald.com
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama conveyed his harshest rebuke yet of Havana's government last week and, hours later, Gloria Estefan protested repression in Havana from the streets of Miami.

Now, they'll be together again when the Cuban-born singer and her husband, Emilio, host Obama at their Miami Beach home April 15 for a Democratic National Committee fundraiser, when the president comes to Florida to talk about cuts to the NASA space program.

The $30,400-a-couple cocktail reception is the Estefans' first political fundraiser, said Democratic consultant Freddy Balsera, who advised Obama's campaign on Hispanic issues and is close to the couple. The Estefans -- who were traveling and unavailable Thursday for comment -- orchestrated a massive march through Miami's Little Havana in support of Cuba's Damas de Blanco, or Ladies in White, peaceful dissidents who were attacked by government security forces in Havana.

``They're both at a place in their lives where they believe giving back is important and patriotism is important,'' Balsera said. Obama will also attend a fundraiser at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami that same day. Tickets for that event start at $250 and $1,250.

Though they've kept a low political profile, the Estefans are no strangers to the White House. Gloria performed at the inaugural festivities for President George W. Bush in 2005, following Bush's 2002 appointment of Emilio to the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities and the President's Advisory Committee on the Arts.

Emilio met with Obama at the White House last May, according to the Washington Times, which reported at the time that Emilio hoped to have Obama over for dinner to talk about U.S.-Cuba relations.

``We just want freedom,'' he told the newspaper.

In September, Obama appointed Emilio to a commission to study the feasibility of a National Museum of the American Latino, and Gloria Estefan -- along with Marc Anthony, Jose Feliciano and others -- performed at the White House in October as it celebrated Hispanic music. The president quoted Gloria in his welcoming remarks, noting that in her words, ``the most beautiful things in this country have the flavor of other places.''

Gloria also scored a pre-Christmas interview with Obama for Univision.

The pair chatted about Santa and reindeer, with Estefan prompting Obama to deliver a holiday message in what he jokingly called his ``flawless'' Spanish.

Obama's reception in Florida may not be entirely celebratory. He's convened a conference on the Space Coast that day to defend his plans to cancel a NASA space exploration program -- a decision that has prompted howls of protest from Florida's congressional delegation.