Wooing Latinos Tough for the GOP

Two months ago, Richard Riordan stood on Olvera Street--the traditional Mexican marketplace that marks both the birthplace of Los Angeles and the symbolic heart of its Latino heritage--and announced his bid to become California’s governor.

The location was no accident.

If Republicans are to retake the governor’s office, they will have to challenge the Democrats’ near-monopoly on California’s growing pool of Latino voters, one cemented in the years after a controversial anti-illegal immigration measure pushed by the GOP prompted thousands of Latinos to register as Democrats.

To that end, California Secretary of State Bill Jones and businessman Bill Simon Jr. regularly emphasize their outreach to Latinos in their gubernatorial campaigns.

But the candidate making the most concerted effort is Riordan, who, many Republican leaders say, has the best chance to win over Latino voters. Reelected mayor of Los Angeles in 1997 with 60% of their votes, Riordan wants to parlay his local support into statewide appeal among Latinos who are far less familiar with him.

In his campaign, the former mayor has made repeated appearances in Latino communities and is negotiating to hire some top GOP Latino consultants.

The Republicans’ success or failure at winning over Latino voters will speak to whether California’s political climate has changed since 1994, when illegal immigration was a major source of tension in the state and a flash point in the governor’s race.

Republican Gov. Pete Wilson responded to anxiety about immigration at the time by lobbying for Proposition 187, a measure that sought to deny most government-provided health and education benefits to illegal immigrants. Much of it was later thrown out by the courts, but Wilson’s move nonetheless powered the expansion of a Latino voting bloc that has since hamstrung his party’s candidates.

Wilson’s television ads--depicting grainy images of illegal immigrants running across the border and warning “they keep coming”--motivated hundreds of thousands of Latinos to become voters. More than three-fourths of those who registered in the last seven years signed up as Democrats.

Now, according to Times exit polls, about 17% of the state’s registered voters are Latino, nearly double the number in 1994.

Cutting Into Democratic Margin

Republican strategists and party leaders do not expect to win the Latino vote outright, but they want desperately to cut into the Democratic margin. Much of the pressure on Riordan to enter the race came from national party leaders who see him as a vehicle to recast the party’s anti-immigrant image in California. Already, supporters note, Riordan is familiar to the 40% of the state’s Latinos who live in Los Angeles County.

“He’s shown he can bring the Latino vote,” said Assemblyman Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria), who has been campaigning throughout the state with Riordan. “He’s not a man who just shows up in the last week and puts up a sign that says, ‘Viva Riordan!’ ”

Yet Riordan must combat both the Democratic affinity of Latino voters still affected by Proposition 187 and the labor movement’s recent success at politicizing Latino workers into active Democrats.

“They still see the Republican Party as, in a sense, their enemy,” said Sergio Bendixen, a Miami-based pollster who follows Latino issues and California politics. “Riordan is not your typical Republican when it comes to immigration and other issues, and they personally like him. But he is going to have to work hard to prove himself.”

About 20% of Latino voters in California are Republicans. Try as they might over the last seven years, GOP candidates have found it difficult to move their support much beyond that.

Riordan “is the test here,” said Democratic political consultant Bill Carrick, who worked in Riordan’s 1997 reelection campaign. “What happened with 187 and Wilson--is that something you can never overcome? Or is it something that is in the past? And I think, unfortunately for Dick, it might be more of a permanent stigma.”

Riordan may have increased his vulnerability on the issue that turned so many Latinos into Democrats. He voiced his opposition to Proposition 187 only after it passed, and brought into his gubernatorial campaign Don Sipple--the consultant who made the infamous Proposition 187 commercial for Wilson.

Advisors to Gov. Gray Davis said they will make an issue out the connection. But Riordan’s team said past work done by a campaign consultant will not matter.

Sipple said that his work for Wilson does not reflect on Riordan and that the controversy about the TV ad has dogged the party for too long.

“That was a different campaign in a different year for a distinctly different candidate,” he said. “Upon reflection, if I had to do it over again, I would probably do it differently.”

Connection Rooted in Philanthropy

Riordan’s connections to local Latino communities go back decades, rooted in his philanthropy to schools and the Catholic Church. The Riordan Foundation has given thousands of computers to public and parochial school students in poor neighborhoods, many predominantly Latino. In Boyle Heights, the heavily Latino neighborhood just east of downtown Los Angeles, the main building of the nonprofit Puente Learning Center is named for Riordan because of his hefty financial contributions.

At City Hall, Riordan repeatedly aligned himself with Latino issues and candidates. He campaigned for Proposition BB, a school repair bond measure that passed because of the overwhelming support of Latinos.

He promoted Rocky Delgadillo, his former deputy mayor, who is now city attorney. He backed City Councilmen Alex Padilla and Nick Pacheco in their races. Last spring, he endorsed former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa to replace him as mayor, spurning eventual winner James K. Hahn.

Even prominent Latinos backing Davis say the former mayor has a strong foothold in this constituency.

“There’s no question that Dick

Riordan won the Latino vote in Los Angeles . . . and that’s going to translate into votes for him in 2002,” said Miguel Contreras, who runs the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, which helped the governor win in 1998 and recently endorsed him again.

But none of the Latino officials Riordan has backed has joined his gubernatorial team yet, an illustration of the challenge he faces.

And Davis has also been popular among Latinos; in 1998, he won 77% of their vote. In the last few months, the governor has tried to buttress that support, traveling to Mexico to meet with President Vicente Fox for his fourth trip there as governor and appointing Carlos Moreno as the only Latino on the California Supreme Court.

But some Latino leaders have been frustrated with Davis. They complain that he delayed signing a bill that would have expanded the category of noncitizens allowed to get driver’s licenses. The measure will be considered again in 2002.

“What that translates to is lukewarm support,” said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, a Latino think tank. “There’s not passion for Gray Davis in the Latino community.”

That’s what Republicans hope, at least.

“Latinos are the new swing group in the country,” said Matthew Dowd, a pollster and senior advisor to the Republican National Committee.

Dowd has a dire prediction for Republicans: If the country’s demographic groups vote in the same proportions in 2004 as they did last year, the Republican candidate will lose the presidential election by 3 million votes--a margin created by the Latino voter boom.

Drastic Situation in California

The situation is more drastic in California.

“The Republican Party cannot survive in California without 40% to 45% of the Hispanic vote,” said Republican media consultant Lionel Sosa, a frequent advisor to President Bush. “There’s no way we can stay in business and not get that over the long term.”

But the last statewide election showed how difficult it is for Republicans to cut into Latinos’ support for Democrats. Much like Riordan, Bush entered the 2000 presidential race heralded as a Republican who could win over Latinos because of his popularity with them as Texas governor.

Despite that reputation, a strong emphasis on Latinos in his campaign and heavy advertising in California, Bush won only 23% of the state’s Latino vote, according to Times exit polls.

The president has continued to court Latino voters. His first foreign visit was to Mexico, and President Fox was the guest of honor at Bush’s first state dinner. Bush flirted with the idea of giving permanent residency to illegal Mexican immigrants until the Sept. 11 attacks stalled that initiative.

GOP leaders hope the president’s efforts nationally and the 2002 governor’s race in California will help restore their image among Latino voters.

“Unfortunately, the Wilson history is still an issue in California,” said Sosa, who is in negotiations to work with Riordan’s campaign. “But I think the president and Riordan have demonstrated that they are different than other Republicans.”

The other Republican gubernatorial candidates also urge Latinos to take another look at the GOP. On the campaign trail, Jones likes to emphasize his efforts to increase voter registration among various ethnic groups, noting that his outreach to Latinos helped him win an endorsement from the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion for his reelection in 1998.

Simon talks about his education plan, which calls for more accountability for low-performing schools, an issue he hopes will resonate with Latino parents.

But Democrats say those efforts will be fruitless. The GOP’s chances are limited by the same circumstances that curbed Bush’s appeal, they say: persistent anger about Proposition 187 and the strongly Democratic tilt of labor unions that generate much of the Latino vote.

“The Latino electorate in California is simply not available at the moment for Republicans,” said Garry South, Davis’ top campaign strategist. He dismissed Riordan’s strong showing among Latinos in 1997 as a turn toward an incumbent in a nonpartisan, low-competition race.

“This is a whole different ballgame; he will be running in a partisan election with a big R after his name.”

That, he said, will be enough to help Davis link Riordan to the legacy of California Republicans.

“Among Latinos, all you have to say is ‘Pete Wilson,’ ” South said. “It’s an epitaph.”