jueves, 19 de junio de 2014

Se busca un líder republicano y tetero para Puerto Rico


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.


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!