Posted on 04/10/2015 12:52:13 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
WASHINGTON — Ted Cruz has a Latino name. He has a Latino background. And he’s one of the few Latinos to have ever run for the presidential nomination of a major party.
But is he Latino enough?
The Hispanic community in his home state of Texas gave him some but not overwhelming support when he was elected to the Senate in 2012. And mostly Democratic Latinos nationwide are more wary than ever after Cruz’s relentless criticism of immigration reform and the new health care law.
His father is a Cuban exile, and the Republican senator from Texas touts his father fleeing Cuba during the revolution every chance he gets, which usually gets a rousing response from an anti-Castro audience.
In his presidential announcement speech March 23, Cruz spoke of his father’s journey, an immigrant’s journey.
“Imagine for a second the hope that was in his heart as he rode that ferry boat across to Key West, and got on a Greyhound bus to head to Austin, Texas, to begin working, washing dishes, making 50 cents an hour, coming to the one land on Earth that has welcomed so many millions,” he said. “When my dad came to America in 1957, he could not have imagined what lay in store for him.”
The Cruz campaign released a video in Spanish and promises a push for Latino voters. “We will have an aggressive Hispanic outreach effort and have staff that are spearheading it,” said Cruz campaign spokeswoman Catherine Frazier. “Ted’s father, Rafael, will also be an active surrogate.”
(CRUZ-SPANISH-AD-VIDEO-AT-LINK)
But Cruz, whose mother is Anglo, has had a limited connection to the Latino community, which is largely Mexican-American and also largely Democratic.
“Running in the primary, Ted Cruz is not making any effort to appeal to Latino voters,” said Matt Barreto, co-founder of the research and polling firm Latino Decisions.
Cruz’s attacks on issues favored by much of the Hispanic community, especially the Obama administration’s easing of immigration restrictions and the Affordable Care Act, have made him unpopular. In a Latino Decisions poll in November of over 4,000 Latinos in 10 states where Hispanics are a significant voting bloc, Cruz had a favorable rating of 31 percent and was viewed unfavorably by 39 percent.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who also is Cuban American and who is announcing his presidential campaign Monday in Miami, also had a 31 percent favorable rating but fared slightly better with a lower negative rating of 36 percent.
Cruz’s birth certificate gives his name as Rafael Edward (“Ted” is a nickname), named after his father. The elder Cruz left Cuba on a student visa after having been arrested and tortured for his disenchantment with rebel leader Fidel Castro, who he had initially supported. His last name is very distinctive: “cruz” means cross in Spanish.
Ted Cruz was born in 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, where his parents were in the oil business. The family moved from Canada to Houston when he was small.
Cruz speaks passable Spanish; he has said he speaks “Spanglish.”
“He’s slightly more Hispanic than Jeb Bush,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, who added that he was only half-kidding.
A recent report that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is weighing a presidential run, had checked off “Hispanic” on a voter registration card caused a stir. Bush is considered a blue blood, the son and brother of former presidents from Texas whose family roots are from wealthy New England families. But Bush, who laughed off the incident as a mistake, speaks fluent Spanish and is married to a woman from Mexico.
Texas does not ask for race identification on voter registration, so Cruz’s self-identification is not so readily available.
“While Cruz is ethnically Hispanic on his father’s side, that is not part of his political persona,” said Jillson.
The Texas senator won his seat in his first political campaign in 2012 by appealing to the tea party in the state with his message of being a strong social and fiscal conservative.
He garnered 35 percent of the Latino vote in the general election, according to a poll by Latino Decisions, outperforming GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who got 29 percent.
But, said Barreto, who is also a professor of political science at UCLA, Cruz’s working against the immigration bill crafted by Rubio and a bipartisan group of senators in 2013 cost him support.
“He himself comes from an immigrant family, and that creates bad feelings in the Latino community,” said Barreto. The bill, which set a path to citizenship, passed the Senate but was not considered by the House of Representatives.
“Ted Cruz is undeniably Latino,” said James Henson, director of the Texas Political Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “Does he seem to be interested in appealing to the Mexican American majority of the Latino population? Not so much. His career in Texas primarily has been focused on reaching out to conservatives.”
It shouldn’t matter what race he is, though his fluency in Spanish may be a plus with conservative Latinos.
Ted leads the firm's U.S. Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation practice. He has authored more than 80 U.S. Supreme Court briefs and presented 40 oral arguments, including nine before the U.S. Supreme Court.If you are going to slime someone, at least do us all a favor and do your research before you open your mouth and post insane nonsense.
Prior to joining Morgan Lewis, Ted served as the Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 until May 2008. Ted was the first Hispanic Solicitor General in Texas and, when appointed, was the youngest Solicitor General in the United States.
Before the U.S. Supreme Court, Ted has won landmark decisions successfully defending the Texas Ten Commandments monument, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, the Texas congressional redistricting plan, and U.S. sovereignty from attempts by the World Court to bind the U.S. justice system.
> I didn’t realize we were considering hiring him to make tacos.
lol or shocolate chales
How come everyone gets to be special except white boys? No one asks if I’m white boy enough.
No, he cannot be a real latino...he is a Conservative!
According to the liberals, in order to be a real latino, you have to be on welfare and dependent upon the government. Extra points for being illegal!
Stupid “fishwrap” of a paper from Florida and this article is just silly !
I happen to know an almost 100% “Hispanic” Tea Party, from this area of Florida and the members HATE Rubio ( his foot-in-the-mouth pro-amnesty did him in and they have long memories !), but are all in for Cruz !
> What a silly article. Exactly how is Obama, who’s mother is white and was brought up by his white mother and white grandparents, more black than Ted Cruz is Latino , given that Ted Cruz’s daddy, who is Latino, was actually there to bring him up and Obama’s black daddy went AWOL from the get go?
He wasn’t AWOL. It takes a lot of effort to run a place like HELL
Silly post anyone?
You are equating someone trying to appeal to groups that have similar ideology(like say appealing to conservatives), to someone trying to appeal to people because they have the same skin color(blacks for example) or speak the same language(Latinos for example). The two couldn’t be more different.
Yes, Ted does and far better than either of the DEM/LA RAZA members, Texan Castro brothers.....who don’t speak it at all.
There is no such race as Latino.It’s a term we in the US apply to spanish speaking people from different countries and regions of the world comprized of sundry indiginous races in those various areas. It came into use during Nixon’s administration.
They are as different in attitude and demeanor as those areas developed into entities and as proud of their heritage and customs holding acceptance or hostility toward each other as europeans did in their development.
Which is why all these divisive terms; white, afro-American and “hispanic” should be officially dropped and one term applied; “American” .
Yes, he is a gadfly. He’s held many official positions (which is why he represented Bush in Bush vs Gore) and he’s brilliant.
My point is that a brilliant attorney may not make a brilliant, attractive or even votable executive. And I was very disappointed to see him going out and trying to attract Evangelicals with a somewhat embarrassing personal account.
I’d like somebody who runs on their ideas, not somebody who does the ethnic or religious schtick. Bambi ran on being black, and we can see where that got us.
I get it. He's the hispanic equivalent of an Uncle Tom.
Nah, we are hiring him to make ropa vieja. :)
No, it’s the same. He’s trying to do a “group appeal,” particularly since Evangelicals regard themselves as a political bloc. It doesn’t matter if you’re appealing to an ideology or a skin color.
What he needs to do is drop the Evangelical preacher mode and tell us his ideas for the future and how he’s going to get to them.
BRAVO; well said and 100% correct !
Ted DOES run on his ideas!
Just admit that you don’t like him, nor his CONSERVATIVE “ideas” and positions.
The question that keeps me up every night ...
“But Cruz, whose mother is Anglo, has had a limited connection to the Latino community”
Okay THAT disqualifies em!
Sham on his mom anyway!!!
these people are beyond normally DESPERATE!!
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