Jeb Bush: the GOP Must Reach Hispanics
The Wall Street Journal reports:
If Republicans were to run a classified ad for their 2012 presidential candidate, it might read something like this: GOP seeks popular former two-term governor of a large state for executive post. Qualified applicants will have a demonstrated understanding of the relationship between taxes and growth, a proven record on choice in education, and an ability to draw Hispanic voters. A commitment to states' rights and the U.S. constitution is a must.
Their candidate is out there. But Jeb Bush, Florida's governor from 1999 to 2007, insists that he's not applying for the job. Still, his ideas and style have gained national attention, so I braved the TSA gropers at New York's LaGuardia airport and hopped a flight to South Florida to talk to him.
As we sit down in his office, the tall Texas transplant raises the still-unratified Colombia free trade agreement, which has been in the news recently. Sitting on the FTA has created uncertainty that is emblematic of President Obama's broader economic policy, he says. Plus, Colombia is a U.S. ally. "We get all the benefits [that come] with a friend and this is how we treat them. It's just amazing," he says, shaking his head.
Mr. Bush's wife was born in Mexico, he is fluent in Spanish, and he lives in a heavily Hispanic state, so he has great interest in our hemisphere. He's also had unusual success earning the political support of Spanish-speaking Americans, so I ask him what tips he has for his immigrant-challenged party.
His answer comes effortlessly. Hispanics aren't monolithic, he says, but all immigrants—"the newly arrived and the second generation"—share one trait: "They're aspirational." Conservative candidates, therefore, should promote "policies that reward people who are aspirational." That's what he did, and 60% of Democratic Hispanic voters supported his re-election in 2002, he says. Hispanic voters are growing in number, Mr. Bush points out, and "they are increasingly the swing voters in the swing states."
One problem for Republicans, he says, is that "the tone of our message is one of 'them and us' sometimes." At least that's what gets "magnified in the press," with immigration policy being the flash point. It's "a shame," he says, because Republicans and immigrants have a lot in common. "But if you send a signal that we really don't want you as part of our team, they're not going to join."
Yet might today's recent immigrants be natural Democrats, as they were in the 20th century after arriving from Europe? Democrats promise more entitlements, and immigrants tend to be on the lower economic rungs. Mr. Bush couldn't disagree more. "There are people who believe in expanding the welfare state across the spectrum of races and ethnicities and creeds," he says, but that's not a common value among Hispanics. "If you had to pick the values that would be held dear to a broad number of Hispanic voters, access to opportunity would be a higher value than guarantee of security, particularly amongst the newly arrived, meaning the last 20 years."
His insistence on engagement is not a call for multiculturalism. Quite the opposite: "The beauty of America—one of the things that so separates us [from the rest of the world]—is this ability to take people from disparate backgrounds that buy into the American ideal."
