Hispanic Republican Leader Leaves Party Because of Herman Cain

It is not shocking that Lauro Antonio Garza has now left the Republican Party because of Herman Cane and lack of leadership in the Republican Party on Cain's comments about the electrified fence, but it is sad that it has come to this.  Our RNC Chair is a joke who cannot even get the states to be reasonable on the primary/caucus dates.  The states know they can do whatever they want and Preibus won't say a word.  When Rove helped install him at RNC, we once again have another Chair who is a figurehead.  RNC has received my last cent for a donation until they clean house and change the rules.  Instead of getting the best person to run the RNC, the Chair has to be a former member of the RNC which is made up of a bunch of elitist Republicans who can afford to travel on their own nickle.  The Republican Party is going to lose more people like Garza who brought fresh ideas to the Republican Party because of their silence.

After Herman Cane's comments about the electrified border fence, he admitted in Arizona they were not a joke, I can understand Garza's position.  Joke or not, those comments are bigoted by Cain and not something you would expect to hear out of someone running for President.  In fact I find what he has to say about the border fence totally reprehensible.  I am with Garza in asking where are the voices of the Republican Party condemning the comments by Cane?  Are they afraid that Cain will infer they are racist like he did Rick Perry for a rock that had been painted over for years.  Turns out that Cain's stance on undocumented Hispanics and an electrified fence is so far over the edge compared to a painted rock that I cannot believe anyone is still supporting him who has an ounce of common sense.

Republican Leader Leaves Party Because Of Herman Cain
On October 17, 2011, in 2012 Elections, by Ezra Grant

The Repub­li­can party is shed­ding their loyal mem­bers one by one. This time its Lauro Anto­nio Garza, the Repub­li­can leader of Somos Repub­li­cans, a Texas Repub­li­can group that caters to con­ser­v­a­tive Hispanics. 

Mr. Garza sat back and lis­tened to the recent claims by Her­man Cain, that an elec­tric fence along the bor­der states would be the way to keep ille­gals out of the coun­try. When asked about those irre­spon­si­ble state­ments on this week’s Meet The Press, Cain said he was joking. No one in the Repub­li­can lead­er­ship how­ever, had any prob­lems with Cain’s care­less remarks, and this silence from the Repub­li­can lead­er­ship was the last straw for Mr. Garza. 

Below is his let­ter:

GOP lead­er­ship: Beyond Reprehensible

How much dis­tance has been trav­elled since Pres­i­dent George W. Bush left office?  

To us at Somos Repub­li­cans, the answer is, ‘Way too much!’ We fear that for most of the Repub­li­can Party, the answer is, ‘Not far enough!!’ 

Today, we find the Repub­li­can Party has strayed from its roots and its found­ing prin­ci­pals so far that they can no longer be seen. We saw this yes­ter­day, in the glare of broad day­light, when a lead­ing pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, Her­man Cain, not once, but twice, advo­cated for the mur­der of inno­cent peo­ple and that was met with cheers! Somos Repub­li­cans, America’s largest orga­ni­za­tion of con­ser­v­a­tive His­pan­ics, was alone in its crit­i­cism of this loud mouth hate­ful bigot. He says he was ‘jok­ing.’ Nobody here is laugh­ing! The fact the GOP allows and applauds such out­ra­geous thoughts is beyond reprehensible. 

To us, the idea of allegedly ‘Pro-Life’ peo­ple shout­ing for the un-Constitutional use of deadly force is unbe­liev­able. Then, too, we shouldn’t be sur­prised since Repub­li­can lead­ers have been advo­cat­ing for the nul­li­fi­ca­tion of the Amer­i­can Con­sti­tu­tion in states like Ari­zona, Geor­gia and now Alabama. When did Repub­li­cans, once syn­ony­mous with ‘con­ser­v­a­tive,’ become so lib­eral as to attack their very own Bill of Rights in the 4th and 14th Amendments?! 

Where is Repub­li­can lead­er­ship? Where has the guid­ing prin­ci­pal of ‘Moral­ity’ gone?! If the Repub­li­can Party can­not or will not rebuke this hate­ful bigot and oth­ers like him who wear the man­tle of ‘Repub­li­can’ then per­haps the time has come for a rebuke of the Party itself! 

Ronald Rea­gan left the Demo­c­rat Party say­ing they had left him. Per­haps, I shall do the same because the Repub­li­can Party has become rad­i­cal and unrea­son­able. Pres­i­dent Rea­gan must be tum­bling in his grave! 

Lauro Anto­nio Garza,MPOSomos Repub­li­cans, Texas State Direc­tor
Octo­ber 16, 2011

What the Republican Party is turning into at the national level and in some states makes you cringe.  I have  supported conservatives my whole life.  As a high school student, I walked thousands of doors for Barry Goldwater who would be a moderate these days in the Republican Party.  What has happened to the leadership of the party of Reagan?  The silence is deafening and the voices you hear are of the far right who don't represent most of us.  These people who call themselves conservatives are unlike any group I have known in the past.  This group of people do not represent me with their hatred and bigotry toward a group of people.

I don't believe in illegal immigration but am smart enough to know, you cannot deport so many people and that are biggest problems on the border are the drug cartels and the Hezbollah.  Those two groups are extremely dangerous but the attention has been focuses on the illegals coming across not the violence caused by the cartels.  People on the border understand but a group of people who have never been to the Texas border have no clue what is being faced in Texas when they demand any fence for the whole border.  It is naive and ludicrous.

Can remember like yesterday the day I was told at a Republican Meeting to go back to Mexico when I dared challenge some comments about Hispanics in this Country.  I was disgusted because they were not seeing a difference between documented and undocumented Hispanics -- they lumped them all together.  I looked at the person who told me that and informed them my Father's family was here before the Revolutionary War and that my last name was Italian due to marriage.

Today I would have had a lot more to say about that bigoted remark.  Then the idiot made a crack about my skin coloring being darker so he assumed I was Hispanic.  It was the end of summer and I tan easily thanks to my grandmother's side of the family who come from southern France.  I was fuming as I left the meeting but then thought to myself what if I was Hispanic and had to endure the bigoted talk I had just heard.  Why would I be a Republican?  We have some small minded people in the Republican Party with the loudest voices right now who are an embarrassment.

Why has not one Republican leader stood up and condemned Herman Cain for the following:

Herman Cain acknowledges his electric border fence idea isn't a joke after all
By Sarah Huisenga  

October 17, 2011

PHOENIX - After first apologizing for suggesting an electric fence along the border, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain told reporters here Monday that he still thinks it's a good idea for controlling illegal immigration. 

"I'm not walking away from that," he said. 

Cain has spent the last several days explaining a controversial comment about building an electrified fence along the U.S. - Mexico border that he said could kill people trying to enter the country illegally. On Sunday, he said his comments were "a joke." But talking to reporters here after a meeting here with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has made a national reputation for cracking down on illegal immigrants, Cain reversed course. 

Initially Cain apologied when told his remarks had upset some in the state. "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa," he said, using the Latin formula for expressing contrition. But when a reporter challenged his description of his comments, saying he didn't seem to be telling a joke, the retired pizza executive acknowledged: "You're right." He said he still believes in the need for a border fence "and it might be electrified." 

(snip) 

Cain wasn't the only Republican presidential candidate in Arizona - host of one of the early primary contests - talking immigration here on Monday. Earlier in the day, Michele Bachmann met with Arizona lawmakers and law enforcement officials to discuss border security. 

Afterwards, she accused both Cain and Texas Gov. Rick Perry of not being tough enough on the issue. 

Excerpt: Read More at Special Section: Campaign 2012

First of all as we have said many times on here, it is impossible to build a border fence along the whole Texas border so Bachmann and that group have no clue but it makes a good sound bite which is what she is all about.  She has never been to the Texas border but as usual she knows what is best for Texas.  She shouldn't be running with her skinny resume but she seems to be there to be the attack dog for the far right in the debates it looks like. Who is paying her to go after Perry because she is relentless and never gives up even when it makes her look stupid?

As you will learn today, the background on Herman Cane doesn't match the rhetoric about his resume.  A little fact checking by the Koch Brothers before they went all in on Cain using Americans for Prosperity would have showed an extremely thin background, no elective office, and someone who really stretched the truth about his time at Godfather's Pizza or working for the Navy while in graduate school at Purdue University.  Speaking of that, where is his thesis?  No one seems to be able to find his writings.  His 9-9-9 plan is a joke and from all accounts based on the video game Sim City.  This about his time as an Intern for the Navy:

Cain's people claiming he worked on rockets: Rocket scientists have advanced physics degrees, not undergraduate mathematics degrees from second tier colleges. In fact, he worked as a low-level testing engineer on fire control systems for ships, not rockets.

We found a site yesterday which did a fact check on Cain and Godfather Pizza.  First of all his claims that Godfather's Pizza was near bankruptcy when he took over were false.  Secondly, it seems Mr. Cain was bad for business at Godfather's Pizza as after he took over sales went down, they closed pizza restaurants putting people out of work, and they went from being the #3 pizza company to being near the bottom:

In part one, we have seen that despite what Polifact said about Cain mostly telling the truth about inheriting a company near bankruptcy, Godfather’s Pizza was never near bankruptcy. He was inheriting a company that was expected to do well by its previous owners and Pillsbury, its new owner. This surely should be considered an outrageous lie by Cain. In part two, we will see what Cain did with this promising company and how Cain turned a company probably worth about $130 million into a company worth $30 million in two and a half years time. Click here for part two.

Looks like the spin machine about Herman Cain and Godfather Pizza CEO has been out to disguise the facts.   Where do you even hear that Cain left Godfather's Pizza in 1996?  That is 16 years ago but the media still touts him as CEO of Godfather's.  BTW, he left to write books and go on the talk circuit -- what happened to the math degree and the master's degree in computer science?  Guess they were too mundane for this man who was on his way to wealth.

The Cain 9-9-9 Plan is being given an 'F' by the vast majority of economist as a plan which will hurt the poor and middle class and make the rich much richer.  It is unworkable and would make the deficit balloon.  Now we know why some people on line said the 9-9-9 plan seemed familiar.  This plan looks to be based on a video game.  Even though Mr. Cain denies, the facts say otherwise.  The 9-9-9 plan is very similar to the SimCity video game and in fact EA Sports has done a parody of Cain and now is selling SimCity games for $9.99 in honor of Cain:

No wonder Cain provided no background for his plan just the Power Point of the 9-9-9 Plan with no substance to make it impossible to score.  We ask once again why is Herman Cain being pushed for President?  Makes no sense unless some people like the Koch Brothers want to buy a President who will do what they tell him.  Do we think that is possible?  Yes based on what we are seeing.  The question is WHY?  That we don't have an answer for at the moment.

Herman Cain said he would not support Rick Perry if he is the nominee.  Some rock on his Dad's leased hunting ranch that was painted over years ago that Cain considered racist seems far fetched.  Obvious that   Cain was given an advance copy of the article about the rock so he could make his comments he would never support Perry.   Could the real reason be because Governor Perry believes that students of undocumented parents who have lived in this Country most of their life should get in-state tuition from a bill passed in 2001 in Texas which he supports along with former Governor Jeb Bush and former President/Governor George W. Bush?  They understand that you cannot punish children for their parents coming here undocumented.  Does that make Cain a racist against Hispanics?  His comments with the electrified border fence give credence to the latter not the rock.

The Republican Party used to be a natural fit for conservative Hispanics but how would you like to be Hispanic and have a candidate running for President wanting to put an electrified fence on the border to treat people like cattle which could kill them?  How are they going to put an electrified fence or any fence for that matter through two reservoirs, one of them 218 feet deep?  I am appalled Cain is a candidate running for the Republican nomination and some people are swallowing the rhetoric of his resume, his 9-9-9 plan, and now his comments on the electric fence.  Are the polls reflective of the true voters are are they selected for a reason because they make no sense in the real world?

Why would Republicans nominate someone who has never held elective office, hasn't been a CEO of a corporation since 1996 who has taken his resume and inflated it big time?  Is the media going to tell the truth about Cain or are they going to pull an Obama because he is black and not tell the truth about his background and what he is saying?

Stay tuned as the Republican Party needs to do a correction or it will go over the cliff if we keep on this path with Cain and the far right.  This is one lifelong conservative Republican who will not vote for Herman Cain for President.  Have had enough inexperience in the White House to last a lifetime.  With his comments on the electrified fence not being a joke, there is no way I could ever support such a person.  There is not member of my family who will support him either or close friends.  This isn't about my support for Rick Perry but my complete disgust with Cain's comments on an electrified border fence, my learning the truth about his 9-9-9 plan being copied from SimCity, his time at Godfather Pizza being spun, and no experience as an elected official for starters.  Herman Cain is a non-starter for me.

Encourage people to take a good look at his background and ask yourself just who is supporting Herman Cain and why?  As a Party, we have been reaching out to Hispanics, and along comes Hermain Cain and now they are leaving the Republican Party because no one in leadership will call him on his comments!

Shame on the RNC!

Wall Street Journal: Jeb to GOP: How to Appeal to Hispanics

There is one comment in this article that jumped out and why we think that Jeb Bush is the best choice for President (we know he is not running but...):

"There is a balance between standing on principle and finding common ground, and we need both. Common ground doesn't have to be compromise of principle."

Very wise words from a very wise former Governor of Florida. Imagine a Bush/Tommy Franks ticket -- we would have it all. Wishful thinking on our part.

Jeb has made some statements in this article that a lot of people would be wise to heed starting with the mentality of us against them. We have long supported a guest worker program as a way to solve a lot of the problems -- we are against blanket amnesty where people are rewarded for breaking the law and not having to do anything to get amnesty. The idea that people would have to pay a fine and get in line appeals to us so we can get the people out of the shadows.

This interview with Jeb Bush reminds us of what having someone like Jeb would be like. He is very calm but you know where he stands. No over the top rhetoric and just what we need right now.

Couldn't agree more with the author:

The field of Republican candidates looks so grim to me that I can't help but ask whether this isn't Mr. Bush's "moment." "This is my moment," he says to my less-than precise question. "I feel totally blessed with the wife I have and the life I have. On the important stuff, it is my time."

But I was referring to the presidential race. "I know you were. And I am not running," he says, smiling. But he wants to "play a role" and thinks that he's especially equipped to do so because he's not running. "I can really speak about things that are controversial, that a candidate might avoid—like immigration. And my view may not be in the mainstream of my party, but that doesn't bother me a bit."

The comments by Jeb Bush above and in this article are why I agree with the author that he is our best candidate. Now you know why Senator Rubio goes to Jeb Bush for advice -- there is no better person out there today to give him the advice he needs.

Believe that Marco Rubio ran the best campaign for Senate of any Senator -- stayed positive and when he went after Charlie Crist, he always had a sense of humor with it which drove Crist up a wall. It shows what running a positive campaign can do for a candidate as he came from way back in the polls to drive Crist to No Party affiliation. Rubio was quick to answer any negatives and ran on 'American Exceptionalism' which was refreshing and resonated with the voters.

If Jeb is not going to run, we know we have Marco Rubio waiting in the wings to run one of these years.

Former Florida Jeb Bush has advice in this article we could all use but especially people running for office:

THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW JANUARY 15, 2011
Jeb to GOP: How to Appeal to Hispanics
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
Coral Gables, Fla.

If Republicans were to run a classified ad for their 2012 presidential candidate, it might read something like this: GOP seeks popular former two-term governor of a large state for executive post. Qualified applicants will have a demonstrated understanding of the relationship between taxes and growth, a proven record on choice in education, and an ability to draw Hispanic voters. A commitment to states' rights and the U.S. constitution is a must.

Their candidate is out there. But Jeb Bush, Florida's governor from 1999 to 2007, insists that he's not applying for the job. Still, his ideas and style have gained national attention, so I braved the TSA gropers at New York's LaGuardia airport and hopped a flight to South Florida to talk to him.

As we sit down in his office, the tall Texas transplant raises the still-unratified Colombia free trade agreement, which has been in the news recently. Sitting on the FTA has created uncertainty that is emblematic of President Obama's broader economic policy, he says. Plus, Colombia is a U.S. ally. "We get all the benefits [that come] with a friend and this is how we treat them. It's just amazing," he says, shaking his head.

Mr. Bush's wife was born in Mexico, he is fluent in Spanish, and he lives in a heavily Hispanic state, so he has great interest in our hemisphere. He's also had unusual success earning the political support of Spanish-speaking Americans, so I ask him what tips he has for his immigrant-challenged party.

His answer comes effortlessly. Hispanics aren't monolithic, he says, but all immigrants—"the newly arrived and the second generation"—share one trait: "They're aspirational." Conservative candidates, therefore, should promote "policies that reward people who are aspirational." That's what he did, and 60% of Democratic Hispanic voters supported his re-election in 2002, he says. Hispanic voters are growing in number, Mr. Bush points out, and "they are increasingly the swing voters in the swing states."

One problem for Republicans, he says, is that "the tone of our message is one of 'them and us' sometimes." At least that's what gets "magnified in the press," with immigration policy being the flash point. It's "a shame," he says, because Republicans and immigrants have a lot in common. "But if you send a signal that we really don't want you as part of our team, they're not going to join."

Yet might today's recent immigrants be natural Democrats, as they were in the 20th century after arriving from Europe? Democrats promise more entitlements, and immigrants tend to be on the lower economic rungs. Mr. Bush couldn't disagree more. "There are people who believe in expanding the welfare state across the spectrum of races and ethnicities and creeds," he says, but that's not a common value among Hispanics. "If you had to pick the values that would be held dear to a broad number of Hispanic voters, access to opportunity would be a higher value than guarantee of security, particularly amongst the newly arrived, meaning the last 20 years."

His insistence on engagement is not a call for multiculturalism. Quite the opposite: "The beauty of America—one of the things that so separates us [from the rest of the world]—is this ability to take people from disparate backgrounds that buy into the American ideal."

With regard to assimilation, he says, Hispanics have much to be proud of. "Second-generation Hispanics marry non-Hispanics at a higher rate than second-generation Irish or Italians. Second-generation Hispanics' English language capability rates are higher than previous immigrant groups'."

The former governor says immigration is fundamentally an economic matter. "I would argue that if we can't figure out how to control our border and move to a much more provocative and 21st-century immigration policy, the problems we face will become incredibly difficult to solve because we are not going to grow." Coming from the mild-mannered Mr. Bush, I take this to mean that government needs to grow bolder—not necessarily more confrontational—in its search for immigration solutions.

The country needs "younger people with energy and aspirations," he says. Without them, we could end up looking like Old Europe: What should be annual GDP growth of 3.5% could instead be 1.5%. After 10 years, that would amount to a difference of $3.8 trillion in economic activity. "So to me the immigration issue is an economic competitiveness issue, and we're missing it because we are incompetent in the government."

Mr. Bush would like to see "a very aggressive guest worker program that ebbs and flows with demand." He also wants to expand the H-1B visa program aggressively, allowing high-tech companies and others to recruit "highly educated, highly motivated people" from around the world.

To deal with the problem of illegals already in the country, meanwhile, Mr. Bush likes proposals that acknowledge the rule of law but also "give them a chance to change their status. If they learn English, pay a fine, accept a waiting time and have a clean record, some system like that makes sense to get people to come out of the shadows." Going forward, he thinks employer sanctions are justified because the E-verify system—an online government system that allows employers to check the legal status of job applicants—seems to work.

The nut of the problem is competency at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "If you have to deal with our friends at ICE, it's like a Kafka novel. Files just disappear," he says, speaking from personal experience with constituents and relatives.

Mr. Bush's fiscal record is also worth exploring, so I ask him about the importance of Florida having no income tax. It has been "hugely important" in attracting people with economic aspirations, he says. Part of the trick is controlling the growth of government. When he was governor, he says, he "did a whole series of things that institutionalized limited government," including building up a constitutionally mandated countercyclical reserve fund, putting checks on spending, creating debt-service limits, and prohibiting gimmicks that underfunded pensions.

Mr. Bush says that during his tenure Florida was "the only state to go from a double-A to a triple-A rating," in part because state pensions were among the best funded in the country. "So when states come hat-in-hand to Washington" looking for money, he says, "I would hate to see the really bad drunks getting more bourbon while the states that have done the right thing are penalized."

So new Republican governors should adopt rules for countercyclical budgeting and fully funded pensions? Too timid, Mr. Bush says. "I would argue for the elimination of the defined-benefit pension system. Might as well just get right to the end of the conversation, that's where this is all going." Then, "figure out a creative way to deal with the unfunded liabilities." That "means you have to take on the unions." He notes that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has so far "shown that you can take on these entrenched interests and be popular and sustain the efforts to change the state."

Mr. Bush points out that although Florida spends slightly less than the national average per student in education, it has had "the greatest gains in learning as measured by the [National Assessment for Educational Progress] scores." Florida Hispanics are leading the way in closing the achievement gap, he says, as his state's "low-income Hispanics now do better than the California average in the fourth-grade rating."

....

I ask Mr. Bush if, having made so much bipartisan progress in Florida, he has any advice for the new Republican Congress. He starts with this: "There is a balance between standing on principle and finding common ground, and we need both. Common ground doesn't have to be compromise of principle."

Members of Congress can find common ground on issues like trade, he says. For example, "if the president is for the Korea [free trade agreement] but not for the Colombia FTA, it seems to me that Speaker Boehner would be absolutely correct in saying 'We're for you, Mr. President, but the merits also suggest that Colombia and Panama ought to be part of this.'"

Mr. Bush says it is wrong to oppose Mr. Obama at every turn. "On the bigger stuff where there are clear lines in the sand related to the size and scope of government, tax policy, spending, the environment and the regulatory agenda, there is probably not going to be common ground found. But there are other places like education where there could be common ground. And, I would hope, border security."

Constant political one-upping is particularly dangerous, Mr. Bush warns, because there could be a shock to the system in the near future. One possibility is "one of the states not being able to deal with its pension obligations and its structural budget problems." That could, in turn, "change the international financial community's regard for sovereign risk in the United States."

Still, Republicans need to fight for their ideals—against "the general idea that you solve problems by mandating, regulating and taxing," and for "trusting the interaction of free people to pursue their dreams." When I ask him for specifics, he says that the Republican House should pass a budget "that's real, that rolls back discretionary spending at a minimum to the 2008 level, and that begins the process of challenging the general size and scope of the government."

Then he points to Congressional oversight of the regulatory process. Congress has abdicated its constitutional duty to oversee "the executive branch's execution of law," he says. Instead, it has gone about "just reauthorizing laws without looking at the costs and benefits," especially with regard to environmental regulation. "I think we should sunset every law and do a review of the of the rules."


Excerpt: Read More at the Wall Street Journal