By Bud Kennedy
bud@star-telegram.com
Two years and one misfired presidential campaign ago, Texas Republicans said they could keep power for decades by winning 40 percent of the Hispanic vote.
Now, America's first big-city Hispanic mayor questions whether Republicans forgot that goal.
"There are two issues for Hispanics in Texas -- education and jobs," said Henry Cisneros, a San Antonio Democrat and former Cabinet official who now leads a bipartisan commission on housing policy.
"Whichever party addresses those concerns will be rewarded. If Hispanics choose Democrats in the future, it will be because they hear more from that side about education and opportunity."
It wasn't always that way in Texas. Gov. George W. Bush led "
Somos Tejanos" marches and usually won 40 to 44 percent of the Hispanic vote.
Yet in a Univision/ABC/Latino Decisions poll in December, 73 percent of Hispanic voters nationally and 64 percent in Texas said Republicans now "don't care" about Hispanic voters or are "hostile."
Tellingly, even 55 percent of Hispanic Republicans said their own party ignores them.
"President Bush, even when he was governor, avoided wedge politics," Cisneros said on a Fort Worth visit last week.
"Lately, more Republicans are moving toward wedge issues."
On the presidential campaign trail, Gov. Rick Perry was pitching to Hispanic voters. But he has said his biggest "oops" was not any particular word, but saying in Florida that if someone opposes educating children brought to the U.S. illegally, "I don't think you have a heart."
The very next day, Mitt Romney said those who want tougher immigration enforcement "have a brain."
In a February poll, 62 percent of Hispanic voters and 52 percent of Hispanic Republicans agreed with Perry.
(The question involved in-state college tuition discounts for about 16,000 students of the 1.5 million in Texas colleges, or only about 1 percent.)
Lately, Hispanic voters in Texas are even more worried about budget cuts to primary and secondary schools, Cisneros said.
"When voters hear 'education,' they think 'opportunity,'" he said.
"If the Hispanic vote is going to be important in Texas, it doesn't seem that way from the budget priorities in Austin."
If Republicans want Hispanic votes, they'll have to go to school.
Bud Kennedy's column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.817-390-7538Twitter: @budkennedy
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