From the Austin Statesman:
At the Texas Capitol, there are about three dozen Hispanic lawmakers in the House and Senate.
The number of those who are Republicans: zero.
That’s what Hispanic Republicans of Texas is trying to change.
The group co-founded by George P. Bush (son of Jeb, nephew of W.) seeks to recruit, elect, support and defend Hispanic Republican candidates and elected officials for state and local offices.
People who knew George P. Bush at Rice tell me that the thought of him as President someday is funny/scary, but from what I've read of George P.'s blonde wife, media lawyer Amanda Bush, the idea of her as First Lady someday sounds not all that unlikely.
Anyway, this reminds me of why the GOP pursuit of Hispanics is fairly hopeless under the current system: Hispanic elites are so overwhelmingly Democratic. Here in Texas, where Hispanics are much more conservative than in California, Hispanic Democrats in the state legislature outnumber Hispanic Republicans three dozen to nothing. The dominant Republican political dynasty in Texas since the 1960s, the Bushes, has been wildly pro-Hispanic for decades and all it has gotten the GOP is 0 for 36.
There are fundamental systematic reasons why the more the GOP elite hands legal privileges to minorities in the hopes of winning their favor, the more the minorities' leadership elites become locked into the Democrats. I will outline this and what to do about it in a future essay.
Anyway, this reminds me of why the GOP pursuit of Hispanics is fairly hopeless under the current system: Hispanic elites are so overwhelmingly Democratic. Here in Texas, where Hispanics are much more conservative than in California, Hispanic Democrats in the state legislature outnumber Hispanic Republicans three dozen to nothing. The dominant Republican political dynasty in Texas since the 1960s, the Bushes, has been wildly pro-Hispanic for decades and all it has gotten the GOP is 0 for 36.
There are fundamental systematic reasons why the more the GOP elite hands legal privileges to minorities in the hopes of winning their favor, the more the minorities' leadership elites become locked into the Democrats. I will outline this and what to do about it in a future essay.
Posts
35 comments:
What about George P. as President did they find so funny/scary? his views? his stupidity? Seriously, that was too much of a tease...
Here in Texas, where Hispanics are much more conservative than in California, Hispanic Democrats in the state legislature outnumber Hispanic Republicans three dozen to nothing.
But .. but .. they told me Hispanics are natural Republicans!
Doesn't that just say it all. Even in conservative Texas, all the Hispanic lawmakers are Democrats.
You've got to be pretty thick to not know where this is going.
I always get my hopes up when I read that you're going to outline a plan of action to remedy some huge problem or other. And then I think, wait a minute, this is why Steve feels kinship with Chomsky- you're both great at pointing out flaws, eviscerating your opponenents' arguments, and yet your practical rumble and tumble political advice always seems to fall flat. Its like looking forward to a really good Belgian ale, and then going to drink it and realizing someone left it open all night and it's stale and cruddy. But it's the best brand out there so you drink it anyway.
"People who knew George P. Bush at Rice tell me that the thought of him as President someday is funny/scary..."
Ha! The people who knew him at UT law think the same thing...
Doesn't that just say it all. Even in conservative Texas, all the Hispanic lawmakers are Democrats.
There are two Mexicans on the Texas Supreme Court.
C'mon...it is really hard to predict the future of a 20 year old college kid, or even a 23 year old law student. Several of my classmates in school who had the low marks and general goofiness now outdo us in money and status.
I predict the Bush family will officially disavow the Republican Party, soon. In W.s upcoming autobiography, look for harsh attacks against rank and file Republicans who reared up in horror at the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill.
W.'s final "decision point" will be leaving the party of heartless White bigots for the kinder, gentler Democrats. His silence as Obama steers this country toward The Apocalypto signals his strong, tacit approval.
Let's try to get the valedictorians to run for president, not the most competent relatives of last generation's leadership cohort.
hopeanon.typepad.com
I've been active with GOP in my flyover state and they just never give up on these kind of dreams. They would consider HBD some pretty toxic shit.
We are so screwed.
The very conservative republican hispanic railroad commissioner was defeated in a primary for no apparent reason.
Really a shame. He was a good guy.
http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/railroad-commissioner-says-hispanic-surname-a-serious-setback-315087.html
However Texas is also the state with the most blacks, 5, elected to state wide office. All republicans. They are not elected from minority districts, rather from the state at large.
"There are fundamental reasons why . . ."
Let me guess. The highly competent Hispanics who are really Republicans, like Miguel Estrada, don't feel comfortable pimping on ethnic grievances.
Wow! I guess its true. The Mexican elite does like to whiten their families up by marrying fair-skinned bleach blondes.
Ol' George P has a regular "Sabado Gigante" hostess right there at home.
Does he count as "Hispanic" if he has a white Republican name?
When he covers Amanda and gets a few sprogs on her, are they considered to be Hispanic?
What the GOP doesn't seem to get is this:
Why should an Hispanic, even "conservative ones" switch to a party whose base detests the racial spoils' system? Hispanics have seen with their non-lying eyes what decades of AA has gotten blacks. They know they can have the same thing since the Dems keep offering it.
Karl Rove is good at a lot of things, but he, Bush, etc. are dreaming about getting Hispanic votes.
The only way it would happen is if the welfare state and AA were dismantled.
In Texas there is no shortage of Hispanic Republicans running for office, but they get beat in the general elections. Latino Democrats have been known to vote for white and black Democrats over Hispanic Republicans. Look for Larry Gonzales to win a House seat this fall, a Repub running in a GOP leaning district north of Austin.
Steve, on Andrew Gelman's blog you relayed this canned anecdote:
At only 16 months old my first son developed an intense disdain for all things girlish, along with a corresponding passion for watching strong men hit balls with sticks. My wife discovered to her exasperated boredom that our tiny son instantaneously began to whine anytime she tried to flip past televised baseball or, God forbid, golf. When he later began throwing store-aisle temper tantrums whenever his mother denied him a flashlight (or toy sword gun, spear, rocket ship, baseball bat, bow and arrow, screwdriver, slingshot or whatever other projection device struck his hormone-warped fancy), she learned there was only one way to silence him. "That's a Girl Flashlight," she'd explain. "They're all out of Boy Flashlights. Do you still want it?"
Believe me, dear readers, contrary to what we've been told so often in recent decades, socialization isn't what differentiates the sexes, it's the only hope of their ever getting along civilly.
I bet it would have been even more effective if your wife had explained to the precious precocity, "That's a Mexican Flashlight."
Likewise, of the 14 Arizona legislators who are Hispanic at least 11 are Democrats. Utah's 2 Hispanic state legislators are also both Democrats.
One has to wonder what the numbers nationwide are. Everytime GOP leaders/Karl Rove-types suggest that Hispanics are "natural Republicans" it would be great to come back with a simple stat like the numbers of D vs. R Hispanic legislators - to say that Democrats outnumber Republican ones, say, 400 to 12. In US Congress the numbers are only slightly more encouraging: of 26 Hispanic congressmen, 5 are Republican - but 4 of those 5 are Cuban.
this is why i posted that mexicans already rival ashkenazi jews for political effect on the US.
they do take political office where they have demographic superiority, and almost to a person, they subscribe to identity politics. it is only 2010, yet they are already pushing their ethnic agenda with as much success as reformed jews ever have. the president of mexico gets to openly smack down american politicians. it took reform jews a century of steady, tireless work to achieve similar carte blanche in the US.
imagine a united states where 25% of all elected officials are mexicans pushing an openly mexican agenda. that's a real possiblity here. you can already see that many mexican-american politicians are almost there. after obama was elected, many stopped even trying to hide their contempt for euro americans or their actual political agenda.
i too wonder, are we supposed to regard this guy's kids as "hispanic"? it's amazing how this magical "hispanic" property can be attached to anyone and transmitted via almost any means.
i'll spare everybody my usual tirade, and say only that the modern american english definition of "hispanic" is ultra stupid. it basically has no definition and can mean almost anything. it's one of the stupidest terms in common vernacular. it's as dumb as anything ever uttered by soulja boy.
George P. Bush looks like a Puerto Rican.
Aarrrgh, another lawyer. My experience with them has been extremely underwhelming. Mostly they get by with a sub-par intellect due to the high social esteem which lawyers carry. I've interfaced with them on engineering cases, and their lack of logic is extremely irritating. At first I thought they were being intentionally stubborn, but then I realized they are just dumb as rocks, but unfortunately haughty.
i'll spare everybody my usual tirade, and say only that the modern american english definition of "hispanic" is ultra stupid.
It's a government definition, not an English-language one.
The "P." stands for "Presidente."
"Let's try to get the valedictorians to run for president, not the most competent relatives of last generation's leadership cohort."
You got it exactly backwards. Nothing leads to a sense of overweening entitlement like early academic success.
Being a state governor I still think is the best venue for testing someones presidential chops. We need a successful executive running the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Or perhaps a CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
I wouldn't trust Obama with the tips jar in a Starbucks, let alone a 14 trillion dollar economy.
No. Huh-uh. Nope. Nichts, nein, no way, no more Bushes. I don't care if the guy's the second coming, but NO MORE Bushes in the Casa Blanco.
Dog bites me once, his fault. Dog bites me twice. . .
At the state level, it's to the benefit of the Republican Party, at least in southern states, that blacks and Hispanics belong exclusively to the Democratic Party, for it ensures Republicans control of their respective state legislative bodies. Unfortunately, it doesn't work the same at the national level because of that vile creature known as the white liberal.
Now I know why W called that guy 'the brown one'! He is 1/2 white and he is that dark? (I might add,he's ugly too.)And thank you, Amanda Bush,for marrying a Mexican. As a scion of a rich,white Republican family and a Mexican ,too,I guess Amanda, Whiskey-like,got the ultimate prize,nabbing a high status rich guy and a PC pin-up boy in one! I aleady hate the both of them! I suppose she imagines their kids--if thet will/do have any--as some kind of Brave New American.UGH!
You men sound sick with envy.
Hey, anonymous.
I agree with you about governors.
I'd add: (1) big population state governors, and (2) they should still be valedictorian-smart.
I think there should be feeder career paths and norms favoring top technocrat grads to become competitive candidates for big population state governorships.
I like Bill White and Meg Whitman as the type of credentialed technocrats to win their state governorships and run for President in 2016.
Hopefully Anonymous
http://www.hopeanon.typepad.com
Whenever someone mentions George P. as presidential timber, be sure to remind them of this:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/georgep1.html
I would no sooner vote for a Bush - any Bush - than I would for a Kennedy or a Clinton.
"Wow! I guess its true. The Mexican elite does like to whiten their families up by marrying fair-skinned bleach blondes."
This is an idea that get's repeated a lot in the Steve-o-sphere, but it's not really true. Or at least it doesn't happen very often.
The elite in Latin American countries is white mainly because white men are more successful, not because the tiny number of successful brown men marry white women and lighten the elite. Most elite Mexicans and other Latin Americans are descended from relatively recent European immigrants who came after independence from Spain. These people form the bulk of the elite in almost all Latin American countries. If anything, it's more common for white men to marry light mixed women than the other way around.
If you actually watch Latin American TV, you will see that almost all the men look 100% European but that many of the women look mixed. Often you see stuff on telenovelas like a white man married to a white woman having an affair with a mestiza maid. That's basically the history of racial mixing in Latin America: almost no non-European Y chromosomes are found in the white population. The dominant group keeps it's line pure and spreads it's genes into the conquered people.
this is why i posted that mexicans already rival ashkenazi jews for political effect on the US.
Wrong. Hispanics influence only their congressmen. Jews also influence yours, via campaign contributions. There are only 1 or 2 Hispanic senators. There are 13 Jewish senators (14 if you count John Kerry).
Mr. Anon links to the following (excerpted). Thought I'd put it here, too, for the record.
>"P" was involved in a troubling 1994 incident described in [a] Metro-Dade Police Department report. On December 31, 1994, Bush showed up at 4 AM at the Miami home of a former girlfriend. He proceeded to break into the house via the woman's bedroom window, and then began arguing with his ex's father. Bush, then a Rice University student, soon fled the scene. But he returned 20 minutes later to drive his Ford Explorer across the home's front lawn, leaving wide swaths of burned grass in his wake. Young Bush avoided arrest when the victims declined to press charges.<
Those Bush genes shining through, I guess.
"That's basically the history of racial mixing in Latin America: almost no non-European Y chromosomes are found in the white population."
You mean, you mean, Whiskey's WRONG?
You mean,
it's the White men boinking "the other" --
NOT the White women looking for non-White Alpha "others"?
--at least in Latin America, where, as everybody knows, they're less inhibited, so more likely to do what comes naturally.
Now I know why W called that guy 'the brown one'! He is 1/2 white and he is that dark? (I might add,he's ugly too.)
It's silly to call him ugly. He's not. And for all we know his darkness is a result of deliberate tanning in order to play up his Hispanic ethnicity. He probably uses a tanning cream.
The truth is bad enough - he's a Bush, and a member of the political family that has helped to destroy America, and that is bad enough. No need to make shit up.
And I'll bet the marriage doesn't last.
Post a Comment