Los puertorriqueños tenemos que fortalecer y arreciar
nuestra lucha para que se nos otorgue la igualdad y el poder político que nos
corresponde, conforme lo exigimos con nuestro voto el pasado noviembre de 2012.
Imagínense que significaría para Puerto Rico si quien aspirara mañana y lograra
ser electo líder de la mayoría de la Cámara Federal fuera uno de los cinco o
seis congresistas que elegiríamos aquí y que nos representarían en el Congreso
si fuéramos estado.
Por Robert Rivera, Abogado
“I know some people made commitments before I entered the
race, but the most important commitments we make are to the American people we
represent.
So I am hopeful you will at least pause for a moment and consider me
for this role”
Raúl Labrador
Raul Labrador Pleads For GOP Support In Race To Replace Eric
Cantor
By DONNA CASSATA
06/16/2014
Los líderes republicanos en Puerto Rico están apagaítos.
¿Qué les pasa?
 |
| El Partido Republicano en Puerto Rico lo fundó José Celso Barbosa el 4 de julio, un año después de la invasión americana. Es el único partido que ha apoyado la estadidad sin peros y con respeto a la dignidad de los puertorriqueños. |
Ayer mi amigo Rafael Cruz Miller de Radio Esfuerzo Progresista, comenzó a preguntar en Facebook dónde están los líderes republicanos en Puerto Rico, algunos
contestaron al pedido, no sabían quienes eran, no hay teléfono, no hay alguien
accesible.
Me acordé de la Convención Republicana del 2012 y busqué la
foto. Ahí estaban Jennifer González, Thomas Rivera Schatz, Marcos Rodríguez
Emma, Pichi Torres Zamora, Quiquito Meléndez, el exSecretario de Justicia, José
Fuentes Agostini, doña Zoraida Fonalledas, el alcalde de Aguadilla Carlos
Méndez y otros que no logro identificar.
Después de que Luis Fortuño dejó la gobernación el Partido
Republicano de Puerto Rico se apagó, ¿Qué pasó? ¿le cortaron la luz los de la
UTIER?
Estoy segura que no, lo que pasa es que en Puerto Rico, ser
republicano es malo, crecí escuchando eso, porque el Partido Popular
¿Democrático? toda la vida le ha dicho a su gente que el partido de Ferré, eran
turbas republicanas, claro, don Luis les tumbó la hegemonía partidista de ser
el único partido que ganaba elecciones desde que se fundó y había que
politiquear con eso.
Luego vino don Carlos y se les “infiltró” en el Partido
Demócrata y don Pedro siguió la tradición. Accesaron al Partido de los Kennedy,
los Clinton y ahora los Obama. ¿Qué lograron para cambiar el estatus de Puerto
Rico? Nada, sólo mantenerlo en la condición colonial. Ninguno de los clanes
demócratas apoya la estadidad para Puerto Rico. ¿Discrimen? Of course!
Ahora tenemos a Pierluisi y a Ricky Rosselló militando en el
mismo Partido Demócrata.
¿Le
conviene esto al PNP? En mi opinión no.
Aunque Pierluisi mantienen relaciones con miembros del Partido Republicano como Luis Fortuño, Alfonso Aguilar, Raúl labrador, Marco Rubio, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen y Mario Díaz Baralt lo cierto es que el Partido Republicano en Puerto Rico tiene que demostrar más liderato.
Hoy se sabrá si Raúl Labrador es el escogido para liderear
la Cámara baja del Congreso. Un puertorriqueño republicano y que goza de la
simpatía del Tea Party en el Congreso. Para mí eso es algo extraordinario, un
puertorriqueño en el liderato de un partido que etiquetan de racista y
antipuertorriqueño es un tapaboca para muchos.
Recibo diariamente notificaciones por email del Tea Party,
nada de sus discusiones tiene que ver con Puerto Rico. Me registré con ellos
para que supieran que aquí son muchos los que apoyamos ese movimiento porque
representa el pueblo americano, pero eso no es suficiente, hace falta un líder.
Son muchos en Puerto Rico los que se han dedicado a
diabolizar a los republicanos y los puertorriqueños por tradición somos
conservadores, defendemos los postulados republicanos, somos fieles a los
Estados Unidos de América. Existe mucha confusión sobre la política
estadounidense y yo veo que la integración de Puerto Rico con el Partido
Republicano no pasa de unas cuantas personas, no está llegando al pueblo.
Doña Miriam Ramírez de Ferrer ha sido una sobresaliente
republicana en Puerto Rico, gracias a ella y en la época más negra del PNP,
luego de Pedro Rosselló dejar la gobernación y los hechos de Vieques, logró
que los estadistas tuviéramos la valentía de darnos a respetar. La tragedia de
la Lomita de los Vientos y la Procuraduría de la Mujer nos obligaron a defender
nuestro ideal estadista y a nuestros líderes los trataron de acusar de motín. Su
liderato fue importantísimo para que despertara nuestro espíritu de lucha.
Hago toda esta introducción porque mi amigo Rafael tiene
toda la razón en preguntar ¿Dónde están los líderes republicanos en Puerto
Rico? En mi opinión están actuando como figuritas decorativas que solo salen
para las convenciones ¿o sólo sirven para hacer “fund raising”. ¿Qué les pasa?
Yo no se lo que pasa, sólo lo saben los que pertenecen a esa
élite silenciosa que controla el Partido Republicano en Puerto Rico. Sepan que
si siguen así, allá lo tomarán como que Puerto Rico es demócrata y eso a los
estadistas no nos conviene.
Ya es hora de que las cosas cambien.
Puerto Rico present at Mt. Rushmore. Full
liberty and equality for its citizens! @ricardorossello
pic.twitter.com/qLVgzO3Nnz
—
Alfonso Aguilar (@amigoaguilar) June
12, 2014
Porque en los Estados Unidos de América los latinos están
sobresaliendo en el Partido Republicano y tienen la simpatía del Tea Party
Movement, esta es una excelente oportunidad para intergrarnos porque el futuro
político de la nación es de los republicanos. Los puertorriqueños somos parte
de esto.
Juzgue usted...
Labrador's Run For House Leadership Highlights Latinos'
Growing Clout Among Conservatives
By Elizabeth Llorente
June 18, 2014
Fox News Latino
A Latino, Rep. Raul Labrador, one of only two Republicans
running to be the next House majority leader, is the Tea Party alternative to
the so-called establishment GOP candidate.
A Latino – Ted Cruz of Texas – is considered one of the most
firebrand conservatives in the U.S. Senate, and even all of Congress.
And a Latino, Al Cardenas, is head of the American
Conservative Union (ACU), one of the nation’s most influential conservative
political organizations and the oldest such lobbying group in the United
States.
They are just three of a growing number of Latinos moving
into leadership roles – the role of mover and shaker – in not just the
Republican party, but in its most conservative faction.
Luis Fortuño en las primarias del GOP en Puerto Rico
Sometimes the GOP establishment sees and deals with
Hispanics as just a constituency. It’s what I call piñata politics. To get
Hispanics, it has to be an idea-driven effort, not just celebrating culture, or
Cinco de Mayo.
- Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino
Partnership for Conservative Principles
“Before, it used to be that Hispanics were just operatives
in the Republican party, helping candidates organize Hispanics events,” said
Alfonso Aguilar, the executive director of the Latino Partnership for
Conservative Principles and former chief of the U.S. Office of Citizenship in
the George W. Bush administration. “Now we are not just operatives, we are
ideologues and leaders in the conservative movement.”
It is yet another chapter, experts say, in the constantly
evolving story of Latinos and their involvement in politics, where they do not
march in lockstep, where they defy categorization.
“Latino in American politics reflect the widespread
diversity of opinions [in the Latino community],” said Whit Ayers, a Republican
pollster, “they span the spectrum from left to right and everything in
between.”
This is a group, after all, that gave George W. Bush more
than 40 percent of the vote in 2004, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a
Republican, more than 50 percent of the vote (over his Democratic challenger,
despite her running mate – a Latina), and President Barack Obama about 70
percent in 2012.
“Latinos are up for grabs,” Ayers said. “They are not
settled in their voting behavior like African Americans have – 90 percent vote
for Democrats.”
On Thursday, the Republicans in the House will vote on their
next majority leader.
Labrador is popular with the conservative faction of the GOP
in the House, and is viewed as the Tea Party alterative to Kevin McCarthy, who
is from California.
GOP members will vote, via secret ballot, on Thursday. The
victor will succeed Eric Cantor, who lost the Virginia primary last week to a
Tea Party insurgent.
If elected, Labrador, 46, would be the first Hispanic
majority leader.
The command of Latinos in the conservative spotlight, Ayers
noted, is a natural extension of their many years in lower levels of politics,
and their coming of age, so to speak.
Florida Latinos, for instance, have held positions of clout
in the Republican and conservative arenas for some time, even though they may
not have been household names.
U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez was head of the Republican National
Committee, and Alex Castellanos, a political consultant, had major roles in the
campaigns of such GOP candidates as Bob Dole, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush and Mitt
Romney, among others.
“Latino politicians have matured,” Ayers said. “They’ve
gotten enough experience in lower levels of government. Marco Rubio was in his
30’s, a young man, when he became speaker of the Florida House. By the time he
was still relatively young, he could run with vast experience for the U.S.
Senate.”
“They have that level of experience now that allows them to
ascend higher and higher,” Ayers added.
The political world, too, has changed, experts say, to
accept and support Latinos in leadership and leadership-track positions.
“They’ve evolved,” Ayers said.
The country in general, Aguilar said, is more open.
Aguilar argues that the conservative base – viewed by many
as less accepting of minorities – actually is more authentically embracing of
minorities as leaders than Beltway Democrats or Republicans.
“Sometimes the GOP establishment sees and deals with
Hispanics as just a constituency,” Aguilar said. “It’s what I call piñata
politics.”
“To get Hispanics, it has to be an idea-driven effort, not
just celebrating culture, or Cinco de Mayo,” he said. “It can’t be just
superficial.”
The new crop of headline-making Latino conservative leaders,
Aguilar said, further broadens avenues for attracting yet more Latinos to the
more right-wing group of the Republican party.
“We have Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz defending conservative
principles,” he said. “We have very good leadership really penetrating the
conservative movement. Seeing Hispanic faces will become more mainstream in the
conservative movement.”
Look at Labrador, he said.
“Here’s a kid who came from Puerto Rico, representing Idaho,
who might become majority leader of the House, with the support of
conservatives,” Aguilar said.
Be that as it may, others say, the tone that many
Republicans and conservative adopt when speaking about Latinos and other
minorities, and addressing such topics as immigration, shows that not all doors
are open to the community.
Many Democrats and others, for instance, said that while the
Republican national convention in 2012 included many minority speakers on the
stage, the audience was overwhelmingly white.
The rhetoric about immigration during the GOP primary in
2012, they said, was harsh.
"The presence of Latinos in the Tea Party and on the
right more generally certainly reflects the fact that Latinos are not of a
single mind on ideology or partisanship," said Louis Desipio, a political
science professor at the University of California. "Even in years when
national Democratic candidates do well in Presidential elections, a quarter of
the Latino vote goes to the Republican candidate."
"That said, conservative or Tea Party Latinos seem have
little influence over the rhetoric or policy agenda of the right," he
said. "The exclusionary tone of Republican debates has continued, if not
expanded, despite the presence of Republican Latino leaders."
Desipio noted that when Rubio supported comprehensive
immigration reform -- including providing some undocumented immigrants with a
path to legal status if they met various strict conditions -- many conservative
groups denounced him.
The detractors, he said, questioned how committed to
conservative values Rubio really was, especially when he joined a bipartisan
Senate group in drafting a sweeping immigration reform bill that passed in the
chamber last year, but stalled in the House.
"Until the Republican right learns to reach out to
Latinos on issues that Latinos care about," Desipio said, "they will
continue to earn low levels of support from Latino voters."
Tea Party leaders counter that liberals and Democrats have gone
out of their way to portray all conservatives as racist and against Latinos.
“The Tea Party's success in nationalizing races and helping
to elect ‘underdog’ candidates has changed the face of the GOP,” said Taylor
Budowich, the executive director of the Tea Party Express. “The media-created
perception of the Tea Party being racist or anti-immigrant has been baloney
from the start.”
Budowich said that Latinos are not a single-issue monolith,
and that many of them share conservative views on a vast array of matters.
“Unfortunately, the policies of the Democratic Party have
created a sinister cycle of poverty through dependency and the American Dream
has started to erode,” Budowich said. “So it should be no surprise that some of
the biggest opponents of this liberal orthodoxy are individuals that come from
the communities that are suffering the most.”
“Many of these Hispanic Tea Party-aligned legislators have
run for office to protect the American Dream,” Budowich said, “so that the
United States remains that beacon of hope that brought past generations to our
country.”
Debidamente emplazados, quién pone un pie alfrente para
defender la estadidad para Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuño tuvo un rol muy importante
en el Partido Reublicano durante su período de gobernación, gracias a su
liderato los puertorriqueños elegimos a Mitt Romney y él se comprometió a
apoyar la estadidad. Pero en la Florida los boricuas de allá le dieron el voto
a Obama, acá a AGaPito y nos neutralizaron.
Llegó la hora de apoyar al Partido Republicano allá en la
Florida con Elizabeth Cuevas, otra puertorriqueña comprometida con los latinos
y la estadidad para Puerto Rico...
The question is, do you believe that Puerto Rico should be a
state or not? Simple.
Elizabeth Cuevas
CEO Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce in Orlando, Florida
and Primary Candidate for Governor of Florida State
Romney y Gingrich dijeron que sí
Y acá ¿Qué vamos a hacer?
¡Fortuño ayúdanos!
Such is Life!
