Posted on 05/17/2012 11:58:03 AM PDT by dragnet2
Ask the Texas Democratic Party and, as far as they’re concerned, there has never been a Latino party chair. This is partly due to party structure. But, it’s also the historical exclusion of Latinos from power in Texas.
Whatever the case, that’s all about to change.
One way or another, in a few short months, a Latino will be the public face of the Democratic Party in Texas. Currently, the only three candidates are Gilberto Hinojosa of Brownsville, Fidel Acevedo of Austin, and Rachel Barrios-Van Os of San Antonio. Changes have been taking place within the party in the past few years, such as the recently launched Promesa Project meant to bring Latinos into the political fold. As a result, it seems that the Democratic Party is run increasingly by, and marketing itself to, Latinos.
In June, at the party’s convention in Houston, delegates will have to choose between Latino candidates to replace current chair, Boyd Richie, who has held the position since 2005. While Latinos are pushing population growth in Texas, Latino politicians are an ever larger part of the Democratic delegation, and would-be Latino voters hold the key to power in the Lone Star State.
And last but not least, Latinos are increasingly the backbone of the Democratic party, specifically: in 2005, Ruben Hernandez became executive director; in 2009 Anthony Gutierrez became the deputy executive director; in 2006 the first Spanish speaking spokesperson was hired; and last year Rebecca Acuña was brought on to serve as the deputy political director for base outreach, as well as being the director of communications.
On the elected side, about half of the Democrats in the state house are Latinos, as are 56% of Democratic state senators in a state with 3.8 million eligible Latino voters. By 2033, Latinos will be the dominant voting age population in Texas.
In the state where Univisón’s newscast gets the highest ratings, the Democratic party is modeling itself after the booming part of the population.
“The ultimate goal is: this is the path you take to flipping the state,” said Gutierrez, in reference to Latino voters. “[But] You can’t have a plan where you go to try to contact Latinos two months before election day. This has to be constant and ongoing, something we are constantly communicating to Latinos — especially young Latinos. They are going to be the future of the party, we have to figure out how to bring them in.”
Part of this strategy is the aforementioned Promesa Project, which is modeled after The Great Schlep, Sarah Silverman’s Jewish outreach efforts in Florida during the 2008 presidential election. The party is training Latino volunteers at university campuses throughout the state to get the word out to their families and communities about voter registration, voting, and generally the political process. These campuses were selected for their significant Latino student enrollment, as well as being areas where Latino voters have the power to swing an election, Acuña explained.
“You can’t say, ‘We need to get Latinos out to vote with no political strategy. That is not the way to address the situation,” she argued. “If you actually focus on specific districts where Latinos are a large percentage of the population and their votes alone can swing an election, you can completely change the outcome.”
The way people at the Texas Democratic Party tell it, it was other Latinos who spurred the party into pursuing this type of action: in 2005 the party was publicly attacked by Latino politicians for not doing enough Latino outreach. Since then, Gutierrez claims the party has spent more money on, and emphasized, Latino voter outreach.
But thanks to the multiplier effects of social media, the party now has additional tools to conduct this sort of outreach, specifically using videos and social networks to do its Promesa Project advocacy. The party is even leveraging Facebook for the project, allowing participants to see which of their friends have voted.
But, Acuña and Gutierrez said the ultimate goal is to turn Texas into a blue state, while bringing Latinos into the fold to do so. The Promesa Project is one way they hope to bring in some of the 2.1 million Latinos eligible to vote but not registered, to expand the universe of voters available in the state — and if they’re really lucky — recruit more Latinos to participate beyond the ballot box and join in the party’s mission.
“It may come as a shock to you, but ya can’t allow in tens of millions illegally, and not expect it to change a country’s history/culture/direction. Those who can’t grasp this are extremely ignorant or naive.”
It’s not a shock to me.
You missed the entire point of my post to you. Please read it again.
Perhaps I should have added a “sarcasm off” symbol....
Republicans are going to have as much success luring Hispanics “to our side” as they have had with blacks. How’s that workin’ out?
Your suggestions for, "Luring" them, as you say?
I was once told by someone in Texas, the illegals in Texas, were hard working, honorable family conservatives...But was assured those in CA, Arizona, Nevada, and other parts of the country are leftist welfare collecting socialist, destroying the country.
Ya got to love some of the comments people come up with.
bttt
Utter BS!!!!
This is predicated upon the fact that the person is in every facet an American, and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance. Anyone who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t American at all. We have room but for one flag, the American Flag. We have room for but one language here and that is the English language. We have room for but one sole loyalty and that is loyalty to the American people. (Teddy Roosevelt, 1907)
“Conservative” is not limited to Americans. I have known many ethnically Mexican, American citizens who are too right wing to be called “conservatives”. We used to jokingly call them “Diazistas”, after Porfirio Diaz, who tried to modernize and industrialize Mexico (and whose life and downfall was very similar to the Shah of Iran).
I have also known many ethnically Mexican, American citizens, who were adamantly *not* “Mexican-Americans”, but insistently “Americans”, and who utterly rejected “Mexicanisms”, like La Raza, MEChA, and were steadfast against illegal immigration. (Big supporters of Jesse Helms in his time. Extraordinarily anti-communist.)
Importantly, the Mexican and Mexican-American and ethnically Mexican, American, split is not the same as the typical American left-right split, based on the history of Mexico which only rarely parallels US history.
Mexico had two bloody civil wars, in 1810 and 1910, was invaded by France and the US, had the first “industrial ethnic cleansing” of the 20th Century (the internal deportation of the Yaqui Indians), then had the equivalent of more than half a century of political domination by the ‘more’ right wing PRI, which was thoroughly corrupt.
Yet under the PRI, they were friendly with communist Cuba, and accepted Leon Trotsky in exile. Yet again, any Mexican who advocated communism was likely to be killed by the authorities. Very schizophrenic.
After the 1910 revolutions, where even affiliation with the wrong side could get a village massacred, Mexicans pretty well gave up on monolithic politics, if for no other reason that only *half* the village would be massacred.
This is one hell of a lot of baggage brought to the US from their home country, and why they do not easily fit into the easy dichotomy of either US political camp.
Likewise, ethnic Mexicans, to a large extent, are “thinking” voters. For them, actions speak louder than words, most would prefer good jobs over government largess, and if someone speaks against them, they *believe* him, and don’t ignore his attitude “because his politics are right.”
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