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Martinez Touts McCain's Leadership Under Fire

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By BILLY HOUSE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 5, 2008

ST. PAUL, Minn. - With Hispanic voters in Florida and nationally seen as a key to the presidential race, Sen. Mel Martinez on Thursday night told the Republican National Convention that John McCain is the presidential candidate best prepared to lead "in a dangerous world."

"This is not a time for on-the-job-training," said Martinez, referring to Barack Obama as "a relative newcomer on the national scene and an unproven quantity on the global stage."

"The challenges and dangers we face in this uncertain world call for strong leadership, and a clear understanding of the threats we face and how to meet and beat them," Florida's Republican senator said. "Only one man is qualified to meet the current challenges across the globe. Only one man has a history of always putting country first.

"That man is John McCain."

Martinez, the first Cuban-American U.S. senator, was one a handful of speakers given prime spots leading up to McCain's presidential nomination acceptance speech.

Martinez's eleventh-hour support of McCain just before Florida's Jan. 29 primary helped boost McCain to victory in the state. Showcasing Martinez's continued support of McCain on Thursday night came as the simmering immigration debates in Congress have hurt the GOP's standing with Hispanics.

For Martinez, the prime speaking slot also came two years before his Senate seat comes up for re-election.

Hispanics are now the country's largest and fastest-growing minority group, and they help to make key swing states such as Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico - where they are at least 20 percent of the electorate - hotly contested races.

In 2004, President Bush and GOP leaders worked hard to attract Hispanic voters, and Bush got nearly 40 percent of that vote in his victory over Democrat John Kerry.

Republicans have since seen their standing drop among Hispanics.

Several recent polls show Hispanics favoring Obama over McCain 2-to-1, or more.

For instance, in one preconvention poll commissioned by the National Association of Latino Elected Officials and released last week, 68 percent of Hispanics surveyed in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada said they planned to vote for Obama, compared with 22 percent for McCain and 10 percent undecided.

In Florida, where Cuban-Americans constitute a significant portion of the Latino electorate, a telephone poll of 750 registered Latino voters done Aug. 18-24 showed McCain leading Obama 48 percent to 45 percent.

The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 to 7 percentage points in each state.

In 2004, Bush won 56 percent of the Florida Latino vote, against Kerry's 44 percent.

"Despite Hillary Clinton's success among Latinos in the primary, this new poll reveals that Obama is doing very well among Latino voters in battleground states. Now the most important question is what Latino voter turnout will be," said University of Washington political scientist Matt Barreto, who was the Latino Elected Officials polls' lead researcher.

In Florida, although as much as 40 percent of the Cuban-American vote is seen as safe for a Republican presidential candidate, pollsters say about 60 percent of it is second-generation and may not be so safe for the GOP.

The relative weight of the Cuban-American vote in Florida, overall, also is decreasing because of the influx of immigrants from other countries. Those new groups do not have the similar historic links to the Republican Party.

Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Colombians and Venezuelans are turning Florida's Hispanic blocs into more of a swing vote, experts say.

Outgoing Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio of West Miami, who spoke this week to the Florida delegates gathered in Minnesota, is among the Republicans who express concern that their party is losing support among a fast-rising voting bloc.

This year, the Hispanic vote is expected to increase to 9 million, or roughly 8 percent of voters.

By comparison, 7.6 million Hispanics voted in 2004, and 5.9 million in 2000.

"I believe that the Republican Party is the natural home for a majority of Hispanics in this country," Rubio said.

Rubio said that some elements of the GOP have made Hispanics feel unwelcome, and McCain may be being hurt unfairly. McCain, joined by Martinez and a bipartisan group of several other senators, wanted Congress to pass an immigration overhaul plan that included giving illegal immigrants a chance to earn citizenship over time.

McCain has since modified that stand to say he wants to secure the border first, though he still continues to push for a comprehensive solution.

"If you alienate the Hispanic voter in this country, you have doomed your party to permanent minority status," Rubio said. "The vast majority of Hispanics agree we need to have immigration laws, that those laws need to be enforced. It's more about tone than the substance. The tone unfortunately makes Hispanics feel unwelcome."

"Unfortunately right now, in the minds of too many Hispanics, we're the party that basically says we don't want anyone coming in that isn't like us," Rubio said.

Reporter Billy House can be reached at bhouse@tampatrib.com or (202) 662-7673.

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