Free Republic

Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican from Texas, a few days ago became the first formally declared presidential candidate for next year’s election. Although Cruz is a Latino of Cuban-American background, I want to give five reasons (there are more) why most Latinos will not or should not support Cruz, who was just elected two years ago. The first reason is that he seems to have little affinity with Latinos, including the large Mexican-American population in his own home state of Texas. Indeed, Cruz is an anomaly in that state due to his Cuban-American background. He was raised outside of the state...

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is vying to become the nation's first Latino president, but the conservative Republican won't be able to count on Hispanic voters in 2016. Despite his heritage, Cruz, the son of a Cuban immigrant, is unlikely to rally voters around his potentially historic candidacy the way President Barack Obama did in 2008, when black, Hispanic and other important voting demographics were eager to elect the nation's first African-American commander in chief. "I can't envision any scenario in which Ted Cruz can make any appeal to Latinos at this point," said Matt Barreto, co-founder of the polling and...

Ted Cruz’s official campaign isn’t even two weeks old, and already it’s done the nation a favor — by highlighting the duplicity of the “multicultural” left and what it is really after. Ever since Cruz announced his candidacy for president, “Latino leaders” have been stepping all over themselves to declare that not only does he not speak for Hispanics (something only they presumably do) but he’s not even a “legitimate” Hispanic. All of which serves to pull the curtain back on multiculturalism: Defined by liberals, it’s a concept that exists solely to advance liberal objectives. It’s not ancestry that makes...

Ted Cruz won’t sit around and wait, because waiting is a loser’s game. Cruz, the first-term Republican senator from Texas, officially announced his candidacy for president of the United States early Monday morning. While there are many fascinating aspects to Cruz’s candidacy announcement—his climate change denials, his political grandstanding that led to a government shutdown— there is one question that immediately arises in my mind: What will he, a Cuban-American, do to speak directly to Latino voters over the next several months? Cruz has been dismissed in the past for not being “Latino enough.” And although he doesn’t speak fluent...

Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz, native of Canada, junior senator of Texas and lover of Wagner, has thrown his hat into the ring to be the Republican nominee for the 2016 presidential election. But it's not his hat that many recoil from so much as it is the head beneath it. Let's talk about the elephant in Ted Cruz's presidential campaign: his face. OK, it's symmetrical in its composition, not too pudgy or gaunt -- all in all, a fine face, really. Some might even say he has the face of an angel. Not me, mind you, but some. Like the...

When John McCain launched his candidacy for president in 1999, the Arizonan made his announcement in front of the decommissioned aircraft carrier the USS Yorktown to underscore his military service. When Texas US Senator Ted Cruz jumped into the race for president on Monday, he did so on the “deck” of an “evangelical battleship” at the Rev. Jerry Falwell-founded Liberty University. Considering the major influence evangelical voters have in the GOP primaries, especially in the early states of Iowa and South Carolina, Cruz could not have been shrewder in selecting a venue for his declaration of candidacy. Rick Santorum would...

Latinos likely haven't made up their minds about Republican Sen. Ted Cruz's newly announced candidacy for President. So in a selfless gesture, a whole slew of non-Latinos have quickly stepped forward to spare us the trouble of thinking for ourselves about whether Cruz stands a chance of winning and whether he can get the votes of fellow Latinos. The answers were "No" and "No." Here's the conventional wisdom, courtesy of the liberal media and other critics of the junior senator from Texas: Cruz doesn't have the slimmest chance to win the Republican nomination, let alone to eventually become President. Which...

The president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce questioned in a meeting with reporters Thursday whether Sen. Ted Cruz’s snubbing of the group’s annual summit this week marked an attempt to avoid Latinos as he runs for president. “Ted Cruz chose not to come,” said a visibly displeased Javier Palomarez, president and CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “I hope it is not indicative that he’s backing away from the Hispanic community in order to get through the [GOP] primary.” Other presidential hopefuls such as Senators Rand Paul, R-Ky, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., also did not speak at...

RONALD REAGAN ONCE said that Latinos were Republicans. They just didn’t know it yet. Ted Cruz, the Republican U.S. senator from Texas who has become the first major candidate to officially enter the 2016 presidential campaign, is quietly gambling that those words were never truer than in the upcoming campaign where he also apparently becomes the first major Latino figure to run for the White House. The importance of Cruz’s entry into the race, however, is not that he is running as a Latino. Clearly he is not. Nor, quite frankly, should any Hispanic be running for that or any...

With the announcement of Ted Cruz's candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination and his speech at the convocation of the ultra-conservative Liberty University, the country finds itself jilted to the right on the ideological spectrum. Ted Cruz is quite the curious ideological torchbearer precisely because he is Latino. The general assumption in politics is that growing Hispanic Latino participation in politics will only mean an ideological shift to the left. This makes Ted Cruz' candidacy a welcome reminder that Latino candidates won't, for good or bad, necessarily stray from traditional American politics any time soon. The son of Cuban immigrants...

Latino Americans – or Hispanics – occupy a stigmatized status in America alongside blacks. For some, that is cause for activism, social change, lobbying for legislative action, or preservation of their ethnic heritage. For others, it is a reason to deny their own heritage and abandon their genetic makeup. Sadly, the number of folks who choose the latter option seems to be growing. According to a recent Pew Research study, more than one million Americans who previously identified as Hispanic and “some other race” on the 2000 US Census checked Hispanic and white on the 2010 census form. While the...

“The Republican Party as we know it cannot survive,” according to Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz. Note the caveat: “as we know it.” The Republican Party we know today can barely get 20 percent of the non-white vote in presidential elections. That kind of political party can’t survive precisely because it is the non-white population that is growing, much faster than the white population. By 2044, the United States will be a majority-minority country; there will be more non-whites than whites. The word “minority” will probably be mothballed by then. Unless the GOP can figure out how to stop...

A new study released Tuesday indicates that Latinos will play an ever increasing role in the future of job growth in the United States. Latinos will account for more than 40 percent of growth in the next five years and more than 75 percent between 2020 and 2034 – an increase of 11 million jobs out of an economy-wide gain of 14 million, according to an analysis done by the economic forecasting firm IHS Global Insight. A number of reasons will account for the rise of Latinos in the workplace, but some major factors will be a Hispanic population growth...

The right-wing firebrand Texas senator, who has been on both sides of the immigration debate, is a lot more complex than he might seem.How “Hispanic” is Ted Cruz? If the brilliant but polarizing senator from Texas—who happens to be Cuban-American—does indeed run for president in 2016, does he have a shot at winning Hispanic votes? At a time when the GOP is hemorrhaging support from Hispanics, would nominating Cruz provide a solution—or, given his extreme rightwing politics, make the problem worse? I have to be honest: I hate these types of questions. It’s fair to ask whether a certain candidate...

Miami, Jan 14 (EFE).- Just one month before the end of the sign-up period in the health insurance market for 2015, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell on Wednesday urged Latinos to register and thus reduce the health "disparity" that historically has faced the group. "As one of the fast growing communities in the nation, Latinos' health is vital to the overall well-being of our country," said Burwell, who - along with Hispanic leaders - on Wednesday launched "Latino Action Week" to encourage members of that minority to sign up for health insurance on Obamacare's exchanges before the...

Earlier this week, National Review’s Eliana Johnson reported on how Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) plans to approach the 2016 presidential campaign: “His strategists aren’t planning to make a big play for so-called independent voters in the general election if Cruz wins the Republican nomination,” writes Johnson. “According to several of the senator’s top advisers, Cruz sees a path to victory that relies instead on increasing conservative turnout; attracting votes from groups — including Jews, Hispanics, and Millennials — that have tended to favor Democrats; and, in the words of one Cruz strategist, ‘not getting killed with independents.’” The plan has...

In a new Washington Post poll released today, American Latinos have a more favorable view of the GOP, besting the Democratic Party among the nations fastest growing demographic group. In a survey conducted between December 11-14, 52 percent of Hispanic Americans view the Republican Party favorably, while 37 percent have an unfavorable view of the Party of Lincoln. In contrast, 40 percent of Latinos have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, while 48 percent rate them favorable. The poll suggests that large numbers of Americans, of all demographic groups, are moving toward the right, as the GOP holds a...

The election of 2012 and now 2014 are over. The most liberal, progressive candidate in the history of American politics, with the worst record on the economy in his first term, Barack Hussein Obama, won re-election in 2012 to a second term by just under 2% of the vote. And in 2014 the vote overwhelmingly repudiated his agenda and plans. The over-riding segments of the population that enabled Obama's victory in 2012 were the Black vote (who voted for him by over 90%) and the Latino vote (who voted for him by over 70%). And they did so, absolutely against...

Rep. Jim Costa was thought to be headed for a safe race. The California Democrat represents a district that supported President Obama by a 19-point margin in 2012—and while Costa had had scares in previous midterms, 2014 appeared to be in the bag. And indeed, Costa did keep his seat, but only after squeaking through one of the tightest races of the entire cycle, a vote count so close that it took 15 days for him to be officially declared the victor over Republican candidate and dairy farmer Johnny Tacherra. So what happened? Costa nearly fell victim to a radically...

SAN DIEGO — PRESIDENT OBAMA’S executive order eliminating the threat of deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants is good policy. It is the right thing to do. But it is a dangerous move for the Democratic Party. Yes, immigration is an important issue for most Latinos and Asian-Americans. And yes, 63 percent of Latinos and 66 percent of Asian- Americans voted for Democratic candidates for Congress in the midterms. The executive order could solidify and expand that support for years to come. But Latinos and Asian-Americans made up only 11 percent of the electorate. Even if immigration were the only...