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A leftover from Friday’s candidate forum in New Hampshire via Eliana Johnson. I had a sense of deja vu watching this clip, and not just because I’ve blogged roughly a thousand Rubio statements on immigration over the past two years. Didn’t he … give almost this exact answer to Bob Schieffer on “Face the Nation” back in April, up to and including his endorsement of a path to citizenship as the final step in a three-stage immigration reform process? Come to think of it, he did! I wrote about it at the time. In fact, as far as I know,...

There are two Hispanic Americans campaigning for the GOP nomination for the presidency, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. They have many similarities; they are both US senators, Cruz from Texas and Rubio from Florida. Both are sons of Cuban immigrants, both are 44 years of age and both are social conservatives. From all indications these two men will rise to the top 10 contenders list. Regardless of whoever seizes the GOP nomination, their struggle will be for the ever elusive Hispanic vote. Statistics are hard to dismiss in an ever growing Hispanic population. Mitt Romney lost in 2012 and...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie faulted his party Wednesday for its unwelcoming tone at times to minority voters. In a speech to a Latino Coalition small business conference, the potential Republican presidential contender also boasted about getting 51 percent of the Hispanic vote in his re-election as governor. Christie portrays himself as the kind of Republican who can attract females, blacks, Hispanics and other voters who are normally drawn to Democrats. …

Smash the patriarchy! New York police allegedly arrested two men for “manspreading” (sitting with their legs far apart) on the subway, according to a report entitled “That’s How They Get You” released by the Police Reform Organizing Project. “On a recent visit to the arraignment part in Brooklyn’s criminal court, PROP volunteers observed that police officers had arrested two Latino men on the charge of ‘man spreading’ on the subway, presumably because they were taking up more than one seat and therefore inconveniencing other riders,” the report states.

The field of Republicans contending for their presidential nomination does not present grandeur.; in truth, it's a pretty weak roster. Take a look at the top names: --Jeb Bush (actually John Ellis, btw): lots of money, lots of friends, fading fast. His death knell was the inability to answer the most obvious question a three year old could have predicted. And conservatives now think poorly of his brother for spending too much (doughnut hole anyone?), and for the Iraq nation building fiasco. The dream of another Bush presidency is over. --Scott Walker: the last guy who claimed that running a...

Latin Post presents "Turnout," a series featuring leading Latino politicians, government leaders and advocacy groups discussing and debating the most important issues facing the Latino voting bloc. Listen to the Unedited "Turnout" Interview with People for the American Way's Coordinator for Political Campaigns Carlos Sanchez:(AUDIO-AND-VIDEO-AT-LINK)More than two-thirds of the U.S. Latino electorate live in six states -- Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas -- but one progressive advocacy organization has been working on having anti-Latino and anti-immigrant representatives accountable and heard for Latinos across the country, especially for the presidential election season. With people entering their names for...

On Saturday, Fausta’s Blog posted an interview from Bloomberg TV that slipped under the radar in the last few weeks, wherein Mark Halperin got uncomfortably weird and painfully white while interviewing Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz. Here is Digitas clip of the segment. It is a comic tragedy unto itself. Fausta, in the dangerous state of “outraged while Puerto Rican,” had a terrific rant that ended, appropriately, with bésame el culo. Kiss my … The absurdity of the situation is outweighed only by how disgusting it is.

It's early in the process, but Spanish-language U.S. media is seeing former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, as one of their own. Bush is a fluent Spanish speaker and married to a Mexican, leading some Spanish-language media outlets to identify him as a "Latino" candidate, even though he's very much white. In late April, Telemundo ran an Associated Press article translated to Spanish and said Bush can "express himself in English and Spanish in declarations that [highlight] his deep ties with the Hispanic culture." Because Bush is an outspoken supporter of immigration reform...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a likely candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, speaks Spanish in a new video celebrating Cinco de Mayo. The video was released by Bush's political action committee, which described it as "a message for the entire Hispanic population in the United States, but especially those of Mexican origin." Bush is fluent in Spanish. "Cinco de Mayo is an honorable date when Mexico, our neighbor, bravely defended itself against a foreign intervention," Bush said. "Here in the U.S., Cinco de Mayo has become a day where we celebrate our ties with Mexico and the great...

In awarding its first-ever Latino Leadership Award, the University of Texas at Austin hoped to highlight its longtime work in establishing a Mexican-American studies center and department. It used the celebratory occasion, in fact, to announce a new Latino Research Initiative at UT. But giving that inaugural prize to Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush — whose resume might read as thin as U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s on Latino issues — triggered criticism from Latino academics and activists on and off campus. Bestowed by outgoing and embattled university President Bill Powers, the UT Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS), the...

UT President Bill Powers presented land commissioner George P. Bush the inaugural Latino Leadership Award on Monday evening. The president’s office worked in conjunction with the Center of Mexican American Studies and the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies to select Bush as the first awardee, said Dr. Nicole Guidotti-Hernández, associate director of the Center for Mexican American Studies. “We went through a series of 15 nominees, and we evaluated them for leadership, public service and areas like that,” Guidotti-Hernández said. “With him as the first Latino land commissioner, I think in its [179-year] history of the office, we...

George P. Bush stood in front of the lectern with its official seal. Behind him, flags bracketed the picture of a majestic white building. For just under 10 minutes, Bush talked about all that he had accomplished in the whirlwind of his first 100 days in office. Bush is in his first term as Texas land commissioner, the seal on the podium is that of the General Land Office, and the building depicted behind him is the mid-19th Century General Land Office building that now serves as the Capitol Visitors Center. But looking at Wednesday’s tableau, you could be forgiven...

Can Republicans win the hearts and votes of Hispanics? Is Sen. Ted Cruz, son of a Cuban immigrant, a candidate who can make a breakthrough with that crucial segment of the electorate? Texas, Cruz noted at a forum with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, “is the only majority-minority state in the country that is solidly Republican.” And he added, “It’s not rocket science that if Republicans continue to get clobbered in the Hispanic community it won’t stay solidly Republican.” Javier Palomarez, president and chief executive of the chamber, teed up the issue by noting that President Barack Obama won...

Javier Palomarez, president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, recently said he believes any new U.S. president will only be elected to office if he or she openly courts Latino voters. He was speaking to Sen. Ted Cruz, who is of Cuba descent, during a question-and-answer session in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. But it’s something that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush seems to have taken to heart. Bush, who has yet to announce he will seek the Republican presidential nomination, has been actively courting the Hispanic community. It doesn’t seem to matter to the former Florida governor that Hispanic...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took his presidential campaign to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce this week, where he raised a provocative point about, of all things, panhandling. Benjy Sarlin reported: “If you look at the values that resonate in our community, they are faith, family, patriotism, hard work,” he told host Javier Palomarez, the CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “Some years ago I was having lunch with a Hispanic entrepreneur in Austin and he asked me a question: He said, ‘When was the last time you saw a Hispanic panhandler?’ It’s a great question…. I’m not sure I’ve...

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will both be making overtures to Hispanic voters Wednesday, speaking to national groups on issues that could increase their appeal within the rapidly growing voting bloc in the 2016 election. What they will discuss -- and how they will discuss it -- could provide a preview for the different way in which the two candidates will reach out to Hispanics once the primary season is properly underway. Fresh off a trip from Puerto Rico, Bush on Wednesday will speak the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference in Houston, a gathering of...

This is kinda surprising: Fox News conservative pundit Andrea Tantaros is reportedly dating Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro. According to Us Weekly, the pair have been spotted canoodling around New York City and have been dating for a few months since being introduced by mutual friends. Navarro is 47 years old, Tantaros is 36. “Even though they seem like opposites, they have a lot in common. They both have a wicked sense of humor and share a love of politics and dark eyeliner,” a source told Us. They certainly don’t seem like political opposites, however, as Navarro performed at the...

Good morning Austin: I had a story in Saturday’s paper on the startling fact that, with Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, two of the first three announced candidates for the Republican presidential nomination for president are Hispanic. In other words, if America elects its first Latino president in 2016, that president would almost certainly be a Republican. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, at best there could be a Hispanic candidate for vice president, with most of the speculation concentrated on Julián Castro, the former San Antonio mayor who is now serving as President Obama’s secretary of housing and urban development....

Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who is running for president, plans to meet with the head of a national Latino organization who accused the lawmaker of distancing himself from his ethnic community. Cruz is scheduled to meet on April 29 with Javier Palomarez, president and CEO of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and hold a question-and-answer session in Washington D.C. before an audience of business leaders and journalists. “The Hispanic Chamber is an important constituency,” said Rick Tyler, the national spokesman for the Cruz campaign. “We’re going to have a conversation, the host and the senator. They will...

WASHINGTON — Ted Cruz has a Latino name. He has a Latino background. And he’s one of the few Latinos to have ever run for the presidential nomination of a major party. But is he Latino enough? The Hispanic community in his home state of Texas gave him some but not overwhelming support when he was elected to the Senate in 2012. And mostly Democratic Latinos nationwide are more wary than ever after Cruz’s relentless criticism of immigration reform and the new health care law. His father is a Cuban exile, and the Republican senator from Texas touts his father...