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But when Cisneros left elected office in 1989, Texas Democrats didn't have another potential statewide Latino candidate of his stature to turn to. And they still don't. Despite the party's heavy reliance on Hispanics -- the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus makes up roughly half of the Democrats in the state House -- the Democratic leadership has been slow in recruiting and supporting viable Latino candidates for state office.

In perhaps the strongest sign of his commitment to broadening the base of his party, Bush has made it a point to create diverse tickets. Last November, he strongly supported former Secretary of State Tony Garza's successful bid for railroad commissioner. His administration has already created a dream team GOP ticket for Texas in November 2000. If Bush wins the Republican nomination for president, he will be at the top of the ballot. Right below him would be a female candidate, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson. Third and forth would be Al Gonzalez, a Bush-appointee to the Texas Supreme Court and Michael Williams, an African-American railroad commissioner who was also appointed by the governor.

By contrast, the top of the Democratic ticket in Texas during next year's presidential election will likely be comprised of four white males. "It's an embarrassment to our party," says Democrat Rene Oliveira, chair of the Ways and Means Committee in the Texas House and head of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus.

Many Democratic Latino officials share Olivera's frustration that their party has done little to reach out to Hispanics over the past decade. Former Attorney General Dan Morales blames inertia and general disarray for the party's inattention to such a crucial constituency. "The Republican Party is doing a better job creating diverse tickets," he says. "And we're just standing here twiddling our thumbs." Now in private practice in Austin, Morales says he had to fight the Democratic apparatus when he first sought the Democratic nomination for statewide office in 1990. Ironically, his own personal decision not to run for reelection last November handed Bush another advantage in an already lopsided race.

Bush faces a much more difficult road in California, the nation's largest state and political grand prize with 54 electoral college votes. Unlike Texas, the Democratic Party controls the governor's mansion, both state houses and both U.S. Senate seats in the Golden State. It is also a state in which Latinos, galvanized by ethnic scapegoating, have been registering and voting overwhelmingly Democrat over the past five years. It is, in many ways the opposite image of Texas, and will be the real test of Bush's Latino appeal next fall if he is the Republican presidential nominee.

In his home state, Bush has been immensely successful in limiting the political discussion to only a few core issues. To his credit, he consciously steered clear of discussing immigration in his first term and in his reelection campaign. He could not have succeeded with his moderate, inclusive message had he not challenged the cultural conservatism of the state GOP. Not wanting to incite the kind of pro-Democratic Latino backlash that former California Gov. Pete Wilson created in that state, Bush encouraged restraint on hot button issues. And much to the dismay of state Democrats, the right wing of the GOP respected Bush's popularity enough not to force him to take a stand on the topic. "Thirty-three billion dollars in trade with Mexico buys a hell of a lot of [ethnic] tolerance in Texas," says Arnold Garcia Jr., the editorial page editor of the Austin American-Statesman.

But neither economic imperatives nor presidential aspirations fully account for Bush's tactful dealings with Mexican-Americans in Texas. Not unlike President Clinton's relationship to African-Americans, Bush seems to have a rapport with Mexican-Americans that comes from experience. What he doesn't know he learns from senior media advisor Lionel Sosa, a veteran Latino advertising guru from San Antonio. Sosa crafted Bush's brilliant Latino-targeted campaign ads in 1998. In both English and Spanish, the radio and television spots stressed the commonality of values between Texas Anglos and Mexicans. While soft-selling the Bush "name brand," the ads revisited the message that the hard work, pride and strong family values of Mexican-Americans are quintessentially Texan. "They reach the heart of Mexican values," says San Antonio political consultant Richard Gambitta. "It's really corazon conservatism. Bush has embraced cultural symbols without developing policy that would help many Latinos move up the economic ladder."

The challenge for Bush now is to repair the national image of his party, the way he did in Texas. The party has been marked nationally with the stigma of intolerance in the wake of President Clinton's impeachment, and the Bush tag lines of compassionate conservatism and prosperity with a purpose are aimed at reversing that perception.

Even if Bush is successful in piggy-backing Latino support to the White House, his Republican colleagues may have a hard time finding his coattails among Hispanic voters. Even as significant numbers of Hispanics crossed party lines to support Bush in 1998, they still voted heavily Democratic at the bottom of the ticket. In short, there is little indication that they were abandoning the Democratic Party. Despite the novelty of Bush's Latino strategy, it was only a matter of time that Texas Republicans began to court Hispanic voters in earnest.

Demographers predict that Anglos will become a minority in the state by 2008. Currently 13 percent of all Texas voters and 15 percent of the California electorate are Latino. Within a decade it will be difficult for any candidate to carry the two states without some measure of Latino support.

Nonetheless, given that the Republicans' rise to prominence in the South began with Richard M. Nixon's "Southern strategy" -- the use of racial wedge issues to drive traditional white voters to the GOP -- it is nothing less than historic that a conservative Texas governor would seek to solidify his power by pushing a message of ethnic cooperation. In Texas, even Bush's detractors credit the governor for placing Latinos more firmly on the political radar than they've ever been before. The latest polls show Bush and Gore running dead even among Latino voters in Texas. The governor's chances of polling anywhere near 40 percent of Hispanic voters in California are virtually non-existent. But no matter how Bush fares among Latinos in his bid for president, he has already upped the ante on what it will take to win over this growing and increasingly important electorate. If nothing else, Bush's Latino outreach has put smug Democratic strategists on notice.
salon.com | Dec. 7, 1999

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