With Markedly Fewer Latinos at Republican Convention, Meet 3 Delegates

With Markedly Fewer Latinos at Republican Convention,Meet 3 Delegates

 by Suzanne Gamboa and Victoria DeFrancesco Soto - NBC.com

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Donald Trump will come to the 2016 Republican National Convention to find a shrunken Latino presence, but it will not be absent.

Even though Trump started his campaign bashing Mexicans, promising to build a wall on the border, saying those here illegally "have to go" and calling a U.S.-born federal judge Mexican while questioning the judge's competence, there are Latinos who say Trump is this election's better candidate and that they will cast their vote for him to be the party nominee.

Not all have been Trump supporters throughout. Some are part of a thus far unsuccessful movement to allow delegates to vote for the candidate they choose, an attempt to keep Trump from being the nominee. Others have switched to Trump after their first choice bowed out. Some just want to beat Hillary Clinton.

The convention begins Monday, after a week in which Trump named Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate and scored a victory in preventing a rules change in the Republican platform committee that threatened his nomination.

In marked contrast to 2012, when rising Hispanic Republican stars like New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio rallied the convention delegates and put a more diverse face on the party, what is remarkable about 2016 is the few Latinos who will be there. The initial roster of speakers for this convention only included Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

A group of Latino conservatives who have been harsh and vocal critics of Trump said Monday that they are backing the presumptive GOP nominee to get a Republican administration in the White House after recent terror events and shootings. But many Hispanic elected officials and other prominent Latinos who served in previous administrations are not attending.


The convention also comes after the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal Marist poll shows the presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton ahead of Trump in four of the most diverse presidential battleground states, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.
Nonetheless, there are several Latinos excited to be at the convention and among them those who are enthusiastically supporting Trump. They recognize the diminished Latino presence but are optimistic about their party's chances for the White House and Congress.

Here are summaries of conversations from three of the delegates who talked to NBC News before arriving in Cleveland:

JESSICA FERNANDEZ, Florida delegate

Jessica Fernandez, a Donald Trump delegate from Florida to the 2016 Republican National Conveniton Florida Federation of Young Republicans

Believed to be the youngest delegate from the state of Florida, 31-year-old Jessica Fernandez comes to the convention with a sense of duty.

A Miami-Dade County resident, she is from the one county of Florida's 67 counties that Trump did not win. She had been a Marco Rubio supporter in the primary, but because she represents the state, she feels obligated to the other 66 Florida counties' preference.

"I feel as a Republican delegate I have a duty to fulfill and I want to do the correct thing and that means supporting Trump," Fernandez said. "I want to do the correct thing. I don't want to add to chaos."

The Miami-born daughter of Cuban exiles, Fernandez's parents arrived to the U.S. at a young age in the late '60s and early '70s. Fernandez said her mother told her stories of life under the Castro regime and the attempt to brainwash her as a little girl into loyalty to the communist government.

"They would tell her to put her head down and pray for candy and they would open their eyes and there would be candy. Then they would say pray to the father Fidel (Castro) and pray for candy and there would be candy or a penny," she said. He mother and her mother's family arrived on one of the last Freedom Flights from Cuba.

One of her grandfathers was forced to leave the country after being told that because of his political work, if he did not, he would face a firing squad, she said.

The political activism has remained with Fernandez, who leads the Miami Young Republicans as its president and is the executive director of the Florida Federation of Young Republicans.
She worked on the Mitt Romney campaign and has worked to helped recruit Hispanics to the GOP and build Hispanic leaders in the party.

She said she expects she'll be one of the few Hispanics at the convention, but was looking forward to it nonetheless, despite the opposition among the ranks of delegates to keep Trump from getting the nomination.
"I respect that there are people who say don't want to vote for Trump," she said. "He got the nomination by the process. There will be delegates like myself who are bound to play their part to deliver the vote of their district," she said.

"The alternative is not pleasant. We have someone running on the other side who has been testifying in front of Congress, the FBI, who's been a liar," said Fernandez. "Those problems supersede a comment that would have insulted people."

"When we have someone on the other side who has behaved very questionably," she said, "I'm all Trump."

GUSTAVO PORTELA, Michigan delegate

Gustavo "Gus" Portela, a Donald Trump delegate from Michigan to the 2016 Republican National Convention. Gustavo Portela

While in high school, Gustavo "Gus" Portela would go to his local county party's meetings in Grand Rapids, Mich. He liked George W. Bush and helped in his 2004 re-election campaign by going door-to-door to drum up votes.

He went on to join the College Republicans in Grand Valley State University and today is in Washington, D.C. serving as the executive director of the College Republican National Committee.
Despite the years of history in party politics, Portela, 27, says what he likes about Trump is that he is an outsider.

Trump's success in the primaries is a continuation of elections of outsiders to Congress in previous elections, Portela said.

"I just think that he [Trump] brings a fresh perspective to the process I don't think we've ever had. I don't think we've had a Republican nominee who is an outsider," he said.

Originally from Puerto Rico, Portela and his family moved to the mainland when he was 11 because his parents "essentially were looking for a better life" and to get better educations for their children. Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory and those born on the island are American citizens.

In Michigan, his father worked in the Sara Lee factory and his mother, who had been a receptionist in a hair salon in Puerto Rico, was a stay-at-home mom while he was growing up.
Portela said Trump has said "controversial things" but said his statements have been taken out of context by the media, such as Trump's pledges to build a wall, which he said became declarations that Trump wants to deport everyone.

At an Iowa rally in November 2015, Trump said: "I'm tougher on illegal immigration than anybody. That's what I'm saying we have to take people that are here illegally and we have to move them out and you know what, it's going to be done, it's going to be done."

Trump has also said families would have to go but some could return through the legal process. Although he was thought to have backed off from some of that, Trump has not been clear about whether mass deportation was still a policy.

Portela said he sees Trump as wanting to establish law and order in the U.S. "He has said he wants people to come here legally," Portela said.
As far as Trump's comments on the wall, Portela said the policy is not unlike the policies of other politicians who have called for border security.

ADRYANA BOYNE, Texas delegate 

 

Adryana Boyne, a Ted Cruz delegate from Texas to the 2016 Republican National Convention Adryana Boyne

Texas delegate Adryana Boyne agrees with Trump that immigration is a serious problem that has to be addressed head on. And she does not believe that he is a racist or a nativist. However his lack of consideration for the tone of his immigration comments is what gets under her skin.

Boyne, a prominent political voice in the Texas GOP and the Hispanic Republicans of Texas, has had to struggle with Trump's comments. She likes his business sense but has been troubled by his Latino related rhetoric.

Shortly after Trump announced his candidacy, Boyne penned an opinion piece for the TexasGOPVote site where she enumerated in detail her grievances with the soon-to-be Republican candidate.
What most bothered (and still bothers) Boyne is the generalization Trump made out of the gate that Mexico was sending people that "have lots of problems…They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists."

For Boyne "the focus on the minority of criminal elements overshadows the tremendous contributions that Mexicans have made."

The Texas delegate's struggle with fully embracing Trump is personal. She was born and raised in the Mexican state of Puebla and became a naturalized American citizen in 1994.

"I am a first-generation immigrant and I take Mr. Trump's comments to heart - he does not differentiate," she said.

Boyne said that if she were further removed from the immigration experience she would likely not be as affected by Trump's comments. But for her, the anti-Mexican rhetoric rings too close to home.
Donald Trump is not Boyne's first choice. She is a Ted Cruz delegate because of his performance in the Texas primaries.

An attempt to stop Trump from securing the nomination by changing rules and allowing delegates to "vote their conscience" failed, so efforts to build more support for Cruz or any other candidate aren't likely.

But Boyne's distaste for Hillary Clinton is so strong that it has moved her toward supporting Trump.
In Cleveland, Boyne will be looking to see a change in tone from Trump, but ultimately, she is committed to helping her party stop Clinton from reaching the White House.

RACE SCARES THE U.S. RIGHT!

The Shrinking White Base of the GOP Cannot Accept the Country In Which It Now Lives

 

 

 

 Written by Gary Younge

 

GUEST WORDS-In the early 1980s veteran pollster Stan Greenberg, conducted a focus group in Macomb County, a Detroit suburb, of former Democrats who had switched allegiance to the Republican Ronald Reagan. After he read a statement by Robert Kennedy about racial inequality, one participant interjected: "No wonder they killed him." 

"That stopped me and led to a whole new analysis of Reagan Democrats," wrote Greenberg in a recent report, Inside the GOP.  "I realized that in trying to reach this group of people race is everything," he told me.

While conducting a focus group with Republicans over the summer he had a similar revelation, although it came not from a sole outburst but almost throwaway comments, often left on cards after the session. As one man left his handout he half-joked: "It's probably digital, so you can check it on the NSA files."

Another asked: "Now you're going to guarantee that what we put down here, we won't be getting a call from the IRS about an audit or anything like that?" Alongside this sense of being spied upon was relief that, in these Republican-only groups, they had found kindred spirits. "I'm not alone in the way I view things for the most part," wrote one on a postcard. "Not by myself in thought process," confided another.

Those seeking to understand what drove the Republican party to shut down the government this month in a strategically disastrous move that laid bare its deep internal divisions – and ultimately led to humiliating defeat – could do worse than start here. The report reveals a sense of ideological, demographic and cultural siege, on the American right, from which there is no obvious escape.

Unable to comprehend or process last year's election defeat, they feel the nation has become unmoored from its founding principles and is on a full-scale, unrelenting descent into chaos. Obama has been victorious in implementing socialism and the party they identify with has proved incapable of halting the decline, leaving them alienated not only from the country at large but one another. If it appears as though they are howling at the moon, it's because they feel all earthly options have been exhausted.

Describing Ireland's economic and cultural transformation in his book The Deportees, Roddy Doyle wrote: "I went to bed in one country and woke up in a different one." Many Republicans have precisely the same feeling.

Central to this deep-seated sense of angst is race. In 2012, 92% of the Republican vote came from white people who, within 30 years, will no longer be in the majority. "They are acutely racially conscious," says Greenberg. "They are very aware that they are 'white' in a country that is becoming increasingly 'minority'."

Growing increasingly dependent on an ever-shrinking base, they see their electoral fortunes waning but are resistant to adapting their message to broaden their appeal beyond their narrow racial confines. Race is less the explicit target of their anxiety (issues such as affirmative action and civil rights no longer dominate) than the primary (if not exclusive) prism through which their political consciousness is being filtered. "Race," writes Greenberg, "is central to their worldview."

There are three main ways in which this has been a factor in the recent government shutdown and Republican schisms. First is gerrymandering. Since race is one of the best predictors of voting behavior, House congressional seats have been manipulated largely on racial grounds. Politicians at state level carve constituencies into odd and unlikely shapes, shuffling around various racial groups to protect incumbents.

Both parties do this when they have the chance but Republicans, who run more state houses, have had more chance and have undertaken the task with much zeal and guile.

As a result, in 2012 the Democrats won more votes nationally for Congress but still got fewer seats, giving the Republicans who shut down the government a fragile mandate. It also means incumbents need not fear losing their seats, leaving them able to act out.

Second is the perceived beneficiaries of government spending. Republicans are more likely to regard intervention as being to support minorities rather than to support the poor. This goes not only for food stamps and welfare but also for Obamacare – which was the issue that initially sparked the shutdown.

"Obamacare is a racial flashpoint for many evangelical and Tea Party voters," writes Greenberg.
Their despair is largely rooted in the assumption that by championing programs that disproportionately help minorities, Obama is effectively buying votes and securing a growing tranche of the electorate who will for evermore be dependent on government.

One participant, echoing the views of many, said: "Every minority group wants to say they have the right to something, and they don't. It's life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It doesn't say happiness. You get to be alive and you get to be free. The rest of it's just a pursuit … you're not guaranteed happiness. You have to work for it."

Finally, there is Obama – the black son of an African immigrant and white mother – who stands as an emblem for all this unease, personifying, in their minds, not only their political impotence today but their demographic irrelevance tomorrow. The word they're most likely to use to describe him is "liar". But their hostility goes beyond his policies and pronouncements to a deeply rooted suspicion of his authenticity.

"[There] is a sense of him being foreign, non-Christian, Muslim – and they wonder what really are his motives for the changes he is advancing." As he moves into his second term, there is now an elision in the Republican mind between what they think he is (an immigrant, a fraudster, a non-American) and what they think he does (assist immigrants and fraudsters in contravention of American ideals).

Their inability to craft a credible strategic response to these insecurities only serves to reinforce them.
"You don't like a particular policy or a particular president?" taunted Obama last week. "Go out there and win an election." The trouble is Republicans can't because their racially charged rhetoric alienates minorities, leaving them more electorally isolated, prompting defeat – which leaves them ever more divided.

Meanwhile, their reckless obstruction in Congress, which nearly triggered a default, makes the nation's descent into chaos more likely. Unable to come to terms with the country in which they live, they are complicit in creating the very future they most fear.

(Gary Younge is a Guardian columnist and feature writer based in the US. This column was posted first by The Guardian/UK and most recently by the excellent CommonDreams.org)

The Cry of the True Republican

I AM a genetic Republican.

Five generations of Tafts have served our nation as unwaveringly stalwart Republicans, from Alphonso Taft, who served as attorney general in the late 19th century, through William Howard Taft, who not only was the only person to be both president of the United States and chief justice of the United States but also served as the chief civil administrator of the Philippines and secretary of war, to my cousin, Robert Taft, a two-term governor of Ohio.

As I write, a photograph of my grandfather, Senator Robert Alphonso Taft, looks across at me from the wall of my office. He led the Republican Party in the United States Senate in the 1940s and early 1950s, ran for the Republican nomination for president three times and was known as “Mr. Republican.” If he were alive today, I can assure you he wouldn’t even recognize the modern Republican Party, which has repeatedly brought the United States of America to the edge of a fiscal cliff — seemingly with every intention of pushing us off the edge.

Throughout my family’s more than 170-year legacy of public service, Republicans have represented the voice of fiscal conservatism. Republicans have been the adults in the room. Yet somehow the current generation of party activists has managed to do what no previous Republicans have been able to do — position the Democratic Party as the agents of fiscal responsibility.

Speaking through the night, Senator Ted Cruz, with heavy-lidded, sleep-deprived eyes, conveyed not the libertarian element in Republican philosophy that advocates for smaller government and less intrusion into the personal lives of citizens. but a new, virulent strain of empty nihilism: “blow it up if we can’t get what we want.”

This recent display of bomb-throwing obstructionism by Republicans in Congress evokes another painful, historically embarrassing chapter in the Republican Party — that of Senator Joseph McCarthy, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, whose anti-Communist crusade was allowed by 

 Republican elders to expand unchecked, unnecessarily and unfairly tarnishing the reputations of thousands of people with “Red Scare” accusations of Communist affiliation. 

Finally Senator McCarthy was brought up short during the questioning of the United States Army’s chief counsel, Joseph N. Welch, who at one point demanded the senator’s attention, then said: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” He later added: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

Watching the Republican Party use the full faith and credit of the United States to try to roll back Obamacare, watching its members threaten not to raise the debt limit — which Warren Buffett rightly called a “political weapon of mass destruction” — to repeal a tax on medical devices, I so wanted to ask a similar question: “Have you no sense of responsibility? At long last, have you left no sense of responsibility?”

There is more than a passing similarity between Joseph McCarthy and Ted Cruz, between McCarthyism and the Tea Party movement. The Republican Party survived McCarthyism because, ultimately, its excesses caused it to burn out. And eventually party elders in the mold of my grandfather were able to realign the party with its brand promise: The Republican Party is (or should be) the Stewardship Party. The Republican brand is (or should be) about responsible behavior. The Republican party is (or should be) at long last, about decency.

What a long way we have yet to go. 

John G. Taft is the author of “Stewardship: Lessons Learned From the Lost Culture of Wall Street.”

President Obama should not be so quick to penalize the IRS for questioning Tea Party groups, argues Stephen Nuño. (Photo/Getty Images )

Opinion: Time for Republicans to recover grand in Grand Old Party

by Stephen A. Nuño, @StephenANuno 

Conservatives should not need to be told this, but there is more to leadership than being smart.  A Harvard law graduate, Senator Ted Cruz is smart but a seriously flawed individual who has taken on a cultish following of political amateurs who have no greater sense of achievement beyond their noses.

Ted Cruz came out swinging like William Wallace and ended up looking like a prostrate George Wallace.  At a political rally in which he attempted to gather the troops, someone showed up with a Confederate flag.  Jonathon Capehart of the Washington Post was repulsed by the display, and pointed out that the Confederate Flag was seen as a “hostile act” by black families.

The confederate flag represents much more than that.
It represents separatism, slavery, and a Dark Age culture of backwardness towards minorities and women. It is the opposite of how we should aspire to be as a country.

No other flag has been flown in this country to support an economic and social system that so systematically destroyed the lives of so many Americans.  The murder, subjugation, and tyranny over the hearts and minds of not only millions of people, but generations of American families is unprecedented and should no longer be accepted in civilized society.

It is more than a hostile act to display that flag on the lawn of a black family; it is a terrorist act.  It is a hateful act.  It is a shameful act.

And yet when the flag was waved at their rally, neither Ted Cruz nor Sarah Palin bothered to say anything. Not that we should be surprised, since Senator Cruz is an admiring fan of one of this country’s grandest supporters of Jim Crow in the Senate, Jesse Helms.

Ted Cruz was warned before this latest episode of holding the government hostage over the attempt to extend health care to working class and poor families that he and his confederacy of dunces would ultimately lose a showdown between the President and the Senate. Yet Cruz ignored those warnings, he ignored the costs it imposed on working families, on our distressed financial system, and on the poor.

If there is anything salvageable in the Republican Party it will come from those who believe in honorable opposition for the benefit of the country.

Currently, there is nothing grand about this party.  There are no more grand ideas to improve the country, improve our society, and move forward as a nation.

Where Ronald Reagan once envisioned a grand economic and social cooperative between Mexico and Canada, today’s Republicans build walls and quite literally try to convince people that freedom lies within one’s right not to have health care.

This is a party of fear and resentment, whose only display of grandeur is in the remarkable littleness of its leaders. The utter lack of courage to stand up to populism, to succumb to the anxiety of a changing society, and to profit off the misery of its fellow neighbors without one scintilla of effort to try to educate their constituency is an utter failure of what a political party is supposed to do.

Our democracy needs a responsible opposition. Today we have none.

The GOP was once an innovator of ideas in an era of lethargy.  They may not have always been right, but they did think big.  Embracing a global economy, families of all stripes, spirituality in its many positive forms, and our pride in improving opportunities for our future entrepreneurs should be the nexus of where the GOP goes from here.  Driving forward with both eyes on the review mirror is neither conservative, nor healthy.

Perhaps some day the GOP will embrace the power of diversity in society as they do their portfolios. Hopefully that day comes sooner rather than later, because the Democrats are content that it comes later rather than sooner.


Stephen A. Nuño, Ph.D., NBC Latino contributor and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Northern Arizona University. He is currently writing a book on Republican outreach into the Latino Community.

Opinion: Tea Party’s hostile takeover

 

 by Stephen A. Nuño, @StephenANuno 

This is not how a modern society is supposed to act.  Over the last week, we have seen more concern for national monuments than we have for our poorest neighbors.

We are now at a point where we are being pulled by the ear by a Tea Party faction who no longer cares about the very basic function of democracy,

Due to the shutdown brought about by the refusal of the Tea Party to engage in actual governance – and the Republicans who have gone along with it – private charities have had to pick up where the federal government has eschewed its collective obligation to our poor, our children, and to those families who make the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.  The Laura and John Arnold Foundation has pledged ten million dollars to hold several Head Start programs over until Congress can come to an agreement. Another charity, Fisher House Foundation, has promised to pay survivor benefits to families who have lost loved ones abroad defending their country until we get our act together.

Even if the House approves piecemeal solutions, if this shutdown continues, hundreds of thousands of American families who have fallen on hard times throughout the recession may have delays in the delivery of nutritional support through food stamps, which have already been reduced. This will be beyond the capacity of temporary fixes by charity.

Apart from the real-world effects of this shutdown, most disheartening is what the current GOP has done to our basic understanding of what it means to be conservative.

Rather than looking at society as a cohesive unit with basic civic responsibilities for each other, conservatism has descended into a self-interested libertarian fantasy land that never existed but for a time in which life expectancy was 35 – 40 years. 

Today, by the way, it is eighty years.

Long-time conservative columnist, George Will equated the Affordable Care Act to the Fugitive Slave Act and to the Jim Crow South. One wonders what sense of entitlement one has, in order to feel like a slave simply because the government has set forth regulations of an insurance market that curbs practices that other modern societies have addressed for decades – such as denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.
There has been a stream of libertarian bravado that demonstrates a lack of basic human empathy not only for our fellow Americans, but a language that poisons the well of discussions about how to move forward as a society.

Representative Brenda Barton of Arizona publicly compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler for shutting down the national parks. Governor Brewer offered to reopen the parks using state funds, but was denied.  Perhaps because she needed to be reminded to focus on other priorities, like her initial decision to halt Temporary Cash Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) from reaching the poorest members of the State she represents; the only state in the union to do so.

A recent book by Dr. Chris Parker and Dr. Matt Barreto finds that beyond the conservative values is a sense of anxiety, conspiratorial fantasy, and delusion about the state of the country.

The fundamental flaw of conservatism in our past has been the refusal to view the poor and minorities as full members of society, entitled to the same basic obligations expected from government to assist with, such as Medicare and Social Security.

The President has simply expanded our notion of citizenship and membership, if ever so slightly.
True, by doing so, the President has encroached on the sense of individuality and empowerment that others have felt since the beginning of our founding.

Still, this Tea Party sense of paranoia cannot be allowed to decay our nation.
We should do what we can to prevent this hostile takeover from happening.

Stephen A. Nuño, Ph.D., NBC Latino contributor and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Northern Arizona University. He is currently writing a book on Republican outreach into the Latino Community.

10 Latino politicians to watch in 2013

by Sandra Lilley

Of course we will be watching all Latino politicians as they welcome the new year with a lot on their legislative plates, be it the fiscal cliff or immigration reform. But here is a sample of the diversity of the Latinos who are either newly entering Congress or are coming back – hopefully ready to roll up their sleeves for a lot of work ahead.

Recently elected:
Joaquín Castro (D-TX) - The national spotlight in 2012 was more focused on his twin brother Julián, the Mayor of San Antonio TX and the first Latino keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention. But Joaquín’s recent election to Congress gives him a chance to expand his state legislative agenda (he voted to restore education funds to Texas) and he is already on record saying Congress needs to tackle gun control.

Ted Cruz (R- TX) - The newly-elected Cuban-American Senator from Texas does not shy away from his very conservative social as well as fiscal views, including  privatizing Social Security. While November’s election loss has spurred some Republicans to weigh moving more to the mainstream on some issues, Cruz is not one of them. Reducing the size of government is among his main legislative aims.

Mary Gonzalez (D- El Paso, TX) - The newly-elected state legislator has defied convention by running for office while declaring herself openly gay and a ‘pansexual’ who does not subscribe to gender stereotypes. Gonzalez, who is pursuing a PhD in education, hopes to utilize her background in education and community activism to increase programs and opportunities at the state level.

Michelle Lujan Grisham  (D- NM) - As New Mexico’s former Dept of Health Secretary, Lujan Grisham increased access to school-based health centers, increased women’s reproductive health funding and reduced teen pregnancies, and increased childhood immunization rates. Other areas of expertise were senior citizens’care and exposing elderly abuse, all topics Lujan Grisham plans to continue in the U.S. Congress.

Raul Ruiz  (D -CA) – The son of migrant workers who went on to Harvard Medical School and became an emergency room doctor – only to beat a wealthy Republican incumbent for Congress – the Latino doctor will now have a chance to work on issues which he has said affect patients’ health, such as education, job opportunities and how healthcare dollars are spent.
Current legislators: 

Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) - The majority of Latino voters favor a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and the Illinois congressman, a longtime advocate of the Dream Act and immigration reform, has said this is the time to get it done.  Gutierrez has been meeting with other legislators “across the aisle” in the hopes of getting a bi-partisan proposal on the table.

Raul Labrador (R-ID) - The new Idaho congressman was born in Puerto Rico, and is a Mormon and a conservative Republican.  As an attorney who handled immigration cases, he is now assigned to the Judiciary Committee and will have a chance to help shape immigration reform. Though he does not favor a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, Congressman Luis Gutierrez recently said to Politico Labrador has the background on immigration “and wants to get this done.”

Governor Susana Martinez (R-NM) - In 2012, Martinez carved her own path in the GOP, delivering a passionate, well-received speech at the Republican convention, yet condemning Mitt Romney’s “self-deportation” and “47 percent” comments.  Martinez opposes giving driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants in New Mexico for security reasons, yet said Arizona’s immigration laws were not for her state, showing the different positions Latino legislators have on the issue.

Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) - Now that Senator John Kerry has been nominated for Secretary of State, Senator Bob Menendez might head the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee (he currently heads a subcommittee).  The Democratic Senator is also one of the leading proponents of immigration reform and will play a key role in the upcoming year.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) - 2012 was quite a year for Senator Rubio, as the young legislator introduced presidential candidate Mitt Romney at the Republican National convention and was even in the running as a vice presidential pick.  The Senator penned his autobiography and was the subject of a biography.  But after Latino voters gave Republicans the cold shoulder in November’s elections, many are looking to see if Rubio can “soften” his party’s image as the issues of immigration reform and fiscal challenges require bipartisan solutions in a pretty divided atmosphere.

Opinion: Republicans are grooming Latino leaders, Dems are not

Here is my debut as a contributing writer for NBC Latino!! Thank you for the opportunity.....

Opinion: Republicans Are Grooming Latino Leaders, Dems Are Not. (CLICK HERE)

Opinion: Republicans are grooming Latino leaders, Dems are not

by Jaime Rojas Jr.

6:42 am on 09/07/2012

We saw this week the Democratic National Convention and its sea of diversity among its delegates on the Convention floor, a very stark contrast to the Republican National Convention faces we saw on television the week before. But behind the scenes, I see a very different picture regarding the grooming of Latino leadership for the future of American politics.

The Democrats paint a party of the “people” who represents the last frontier to protect what’s left of the American middle class. At the DNC, they showcased their Latino leadership. We saw my mayor, Antonio Villariagosa, prominently displayed as the chairman of the Convention. Julian Castro, the mayor of San Antonio, is billed as the rising Latino star in the Democratic Party.

The RNC, on the other hand, spotlighted their chosen ones too: Congressman Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and Governor Susanna Martinez of New Mexico. So we ask: “Which political party is really grooming our future Latino leadership?” My short answer is….the Republican party. Here is why: The Democrats, with all their fanfare of diversity, really has no real infrastructure on a national or state level focused on grooming Latino leadership. Since Latinos just happen to make a large number in their party, really by default they have taken some leadership roles. And if you think about it, Democratic Latinos are not really in too many high level positions like governors or senior ranking congresspersons, considering the number of Latinos in the party.

The reason is simple. The Democratic Party has a “union” mentality when it comes to grooming its next leadership. You have to start practically at birth as a member of the Party and promote your way up the ladder, until it’s your time to eventually lead. Being from California, that process and mentality is obvious with the State Democrats and the union machine. So what real chance does a young Latino have of high level leadership in the Democratic Party, if they don’t follow this “promotional” leadership process…none.

The Republicans surprisingly enough, invested last year, on the national level into a fund specifically to identify and groom 100 top Latino leaders for the Party. Impressive? Well, the fund only started with less than 2 million dollars, which in today’s economy is not much, but it’s a start. For the first time we heard not just one but two Latinos, Congressman Marco Rubio and Governor Susanna Martinez on the short list for Vice President! We recently saw Congressman Ted Cruz come in and shock everyone with his win in Texas. He had some support (money) of the RNC too.

I believe the Republican party has the better chance of grooming and possibly delivering Latino political leaders that actually will not only look like us, but also represent us appropriately. Believe it or not, Latinos’ beliefs are very similar to those of the GOP: family, fiscal conservancy, small government, and support of entrepreneurship and business. Yes, I know, shocking but very true. With our potential voting power, Latinos can vote into office (or take out of office) the right candidate to represent and act on our legislative needs. What is good for Latinos is good for America…and what is good for America is good for Latinos!

The Latino community must continue investing in ourselves and believe that our time is here now. We must support leadership-training beginning with our youth, and support national organizations like the National Hispanic Institute, based out of Texas, who go after our cream of the crop of Latino youth and train them to think like leaders and entrepreneurs. At the end of the day, it is our responsibility, no one else’s, to train, groom and support America’s future leadership! Let’s all take this call for action….it is really the American thing to do, no que no?

Jaime Rojas Jr. worked for The White House’s Office of Public Liaison and Latino outreach for President Bill Clinton, and for The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. He is also the former President and CEO of the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce (CHCC) and he wrote his first book in 2011 titled, “The Conservative’s Pocket Constitution.” Follow Jaime on Twitter @Jaime_Rojas