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George P Gives Bush
Campaign Latino Appeal

By David Rennie in Las Cruces
The Telegraph - UK
10-14-4
 
For a nation born of a revolt against monarchy, America has an odd weakness for crown princes.
 
From the republic's earliest days, Americans have been fixated by young men seemingly born to rule - smart, dashing men with weighty names, such as Adams, Kennedy or Roosevelt.
 
America's latest heir-apparent carries a greater weight than most. He is George P Bush, 28-year-old son of Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, and nephew of President George W Bush.
 
It would be burden enough that George P has been praised by the first President Bush as the most politically aware of his grandchildren.
 
Though he graduated from law school only in May, his occasional appearances on the campaign trail draw more crowds than many members of the cabinet or Congress.
 
His dark, matinee-idol looks once made him one of People magazine's 100 most eligible bachelors.
 
But his bloodlines offer more than fame. Through his mother, Columba, he is half-Mexican. That has plunged him into the heart of the Republican Party's most ambitious project in decades: the wooing of the exploding Latino population.
 
Last year, the US Census Bureau said Latinos had overtaken blacks to become the largest ethnic minority, with 14 per cent of the population. By mid-century, demographers estimate, one in four Americans will be Latino.
 
At one event George P attended during last month's Republican convention in New York, activists began chanting "Bush 2020", predicting the year of his run for the White House.
 
He flew to New Mexico, the most heavily Latino state, this week to help launch a drive for Hispanic votes, entitled "Nos conocemos", or "We know each other".
 
Al Gore won New Mexico by 366 votes four years ago, closer even than Florida. The state looks tied again this year. Nationally, Republicans aim to win 40 per cent of the Hispanic vote, up from 35 per cent in 2000.
 
New Mexico's Democratic governor, Bill Richardson, himself Hispanic, warned his party that conceding Republicans 40 per cent of Latino voters would cost them the presidential election. To some of Mr Bush's closest aides, the stakes are even higher than a single election.
 
Making a campaign stop with George P in Las Cruces, a scrubby desert town near the Texan border, Alberto Gonzalez, the White House legal chief said the Republicans' future was in the balance.
 
"I don't think the Republican party can continue to grow unless it does a better job of attracting Hispanic support," said Mr Gonzalez, arguably the most powerful Hispanic in America.
 
For years, Hispanics were loyal Democrats, as the party of the civil rights movement and better conditions for migrant workers.
 
Now Republicans think new generations of Hispanics are ripe for the picking, as they start businesses, buy houses, and leave memories of welfare cheques behind.
 
Speaking in near-fluent Spanish to Republicans at a local factory, George P urged them: "Let people know my uncle knows our values: faith in God, faith in the family, faith in the community."
 
An open-necked shirt, blue blazer and playboy's stubble made George P look like European royalty, somehow transported into the gathering of New Mexico politicians, with their brown suits, name badges and sweating brows.
 
In an interview afterwards, he said that in the past, Republicans had done little to win Hispanic votes.
 
Today, he argued, "the entitlement programmes of the past are out the window, and our message is more in tune with the community.
 
"The civil rights era is, I believe, over. The new civil rights for Hispanics are education and economic empowerment. Not to mention the fact that Hispanics are very Catholic, so family values, whether you're talking about abortion or the social questions of our day, tend to be more conservative."
 
Until recently, politicians campaigning among Hispanics did little more than insert mangled Spanish greetings into their standard speeches.
 
George P dismissed such pandering as "mariachi politics", referring to Mexican bands hired for celebrations.
 
"Sprinkling a few phrases in Spanish, those kind of tactics were for the last century."
 
Asked about his own political ambitions, George P murmured that he had "no definite plans at all. I'm just starting my legal practice, and my priority is getting my uncle elected".
 
He admitted that his Hispanic lineage was a prized political asset in the new America. "But so," he said with a level gaze, "is being a Bush."
 
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004. http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/14/
wus14.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/10/14/ixworld.html
 
 

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