Bush's Hispanic Support May Be Weakening

[GreenPartyVoter]

"
MIAMI (AP) - President Bush's policies toward Fidel Castro's regime and the war in Iraq are threatening to fray traditionally solid Republican ties to Cuban-American voters, the largest segment of Florida's fast-growing Hispanic community.

In 2000, Bush won Florida by a mere 537 votes, but his advantage among Cubans was about 4-to-1. Non-Cuban Hispanics tend to vote Democratic and are flocking to the state. On Nov. 2, the key to Florida - the decisive swing state four years ago - could well be this disparate Hispanic vote.

Florida's population has grown by more than 1 million since the last presidential election, a 6.5 percent increase from 2000 to July 2003 that could transform the state's electorate. From April 2000 to July 2002, nearly half of those new residents were Hispanic, according to the most recent numbers from the Census Bureau.

South Florida's Cuban-American community of about 600,000 is divided over the Bush administration's policies, with some hard-line exiles complaining that Bush has failed to take a tougher stance against Castro. A younger generation of Cubans who were born in the United States - or raised here most of their lives - are more likely to support engagement with Cuba. They are not knee-jerk Republicans like their parents."

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20040607/D832F2H82.html

[OpSomBlood]

1. Being Hispanic myself...

I personally am deeply insulted whenever he attends some "Latino" event and tries pitifully to speak Spanish.

Bastard doesn't even have English down pat yet.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. I don't speak Spanish, but I can still tell he is mangling it.

He brings the same finesse to that as he does everything else. :eyes:

[LittleApple81]

3. I heard him during the rose garden "out of the blue" attack against

Cuba... his Spanish is horrible. My French, German, Italian are almost non-existent and I still tried to use whatever I know when I went to Europe...but I didn't do it as if I WAS SHOWING OFF HOW LITTLE of these languages I know or as if it were remarkable that I lowered myself to try to speak these languages to the "native" speakers. That was the impression I got from him mangling Spanish on that occasion.

[OpSomBlood]

4. One of the reasons Dean appealed to me...

...was that he is 100% fluent in Spanish. He would have snagged a boatload of Hispanic votes from Bush this go-round.

[sendero]

5. Misleading title...

... should be something like "Bush*'s support from a tiny vocal minority of hispanics may be weakening".

Would be great without that proviso but I guess we can use all the help in Florida that we can get.

[OpSomBlood]

6. It's not a "tiny vocal minority"...

I grew up in Miami, and almost every Cuban there votes Republican no matter what. I'm not sure how it distributes among other nationalities, but I do know that Cuban exiles never forgave JFK for the Bay of Pigs.

[sendero]

7. For the country as a whole..

... it is a tiny vocal minority.

[Bridget Burke]

8. That's true in much of the country.

In Houston we've got a wide range of "Hispanics"--from all of South & Central America, the Islands & even from Spain itself. But the largest group by far is "Mexican-American". That group includes quite recent immigrants & others whose ancestors crossed that River long before most of mine had crossed the Ocean.

One Cuban-American, Orlando Sanchez, ran for mayor twice--as a Republican. He lost both times.