R.G.V: The Hispanic Battleground

Perry VS Hutchison

Bush VS Kerry

September 05, 2004

           Featuring: Senators Hutchison & Cornyn; IBWC Duran

           Eddie Lucio; Carol Strayhorn; Richard Moore & others!

For publishers/broadcasters/media: Anything written or produced on this website may be freely used (including video, audio, and photos), as long as credit is given to either www.valleynewsline.com or "Valley NewsLine with Ron Whitlock on KRGV-TV"

The Rio Grande Valley & South Texas represent the ancestral homeland of the majority of Hispanics in the United States in that this is where their families first generation first immigrated from Mexico. This is where their beloved grand and great-grand-parents still live as well as other extended family members. 2nd and 3rd generation Hispanics, via migrant farm worker patterns, have now been integrated into American society primarily throughout the mid-West, but also in California and Florida, also due to earlier migrant farm worker patterns. These Hispanics, now Doctors, Lawyers, Professionals, some leading major institutions in some instances, and at lower socioeconomic levels working in the services sector of the U.S. economy make up the largest minority group in the U.S. Due to the, "Family first" Hispanic mentality, they communicate in an ongoing manner with their beloved "abuela's, spanish for grandmothers, who traditionally are the matriarc's in this society, and send money regularly back to this extended family living back in their "Hispanic Ancestral Homeland, the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. This represents their unique Mexican Style form of social security, with the younger generations supporting the older generations. The estimated 10 million undocumented Mexican's in the U.S. who provide the lower echelon services which most Americans refuse to provide, but take advantage of, send back an estimated $13Billion dollars annual to Mexico, which represents the economy's second biggest revenue source behind petroleum (Petroleos Mexicanos).

President Bush' campaign strategist Matthew Dowd, says that "As a realistic goal, we (Bush) have to get somewhere between 38 and 40% of the Hispanic vote" in 2004 for the President to be re-elected. If the most recent poll numbers released by the Washington Post/Univision Tomas Rivera Policy Institute poll shows Bush at 30%, or way off the Bush campaign target, and the Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Family Foundation poll showing the President at 32%. If Dowd is correct in that the President has to get 38 to 40% of Hispanics to win, and since late deciding Hispanic voters are expecting to break for Kerry as election day nears, it would appear that President Bush will lose this election. Particularly alarming for Bush is that when he won the Presidency in 2000, he held a wider margin against Al Gore, with Gore at 62% and Bush at 35%, according to the 2000 Voter News Services exit poll.

Ron speculates: Texas Sr. U.S. Senator Hutchison anticipates a 2008 Presidential or Vice-Presidential race against Hillory Clinton from the position of incumbant Governor of Texas, or in her criticism of Gov. Perry is she seeking to distance him from President Bush with responses from; Dr. Tony Knopp, a professor of history at the University of Texas-Brownsville/Texas Southmost College (UTB/TSC), and Dr. Samuel Freeman, a professor of political science at the University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA),  join Ron to discuss issues that make the Rio Grande Valley of Texas ground zero for most major issues in this presidential election cycle, including US-VISIT, CHIP, the Texas Legislature's recent redistricting which began Bush' support by Hispanics to begin to decline across the nation, and other political controversies.  Of special note is the probability that the recent actions by the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature and Texas Governor Rick Perry, both of which are representing the G.O.P. here in Texas, will hurt President Bush's re-election hopes of appealing to the Hispanic population in the United States, considering that they are now the largest minority group in the nation.

Governor Perry and Senator Hutchison both issue new statements to Valley Newsline announcing their support of a third dam/reservoir on the Rio Grande River for future Valley water needs, as they simultaniously reinforce their own individual appeal to the Ancestral Hispanic Heartland by endorsing the new dam initiative by International Boundary and Water Commission Commissioner Arturo Duran, which was exclusively announced on this program in August & is repeated in this programd

To reenforce the need for this 3rd lake/dam,Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Susan Combs reveals that the decade long refusal of Mexico to meet its 1944 water treaty water delivery requirements to South Texas has caused $1Billion dollars and lost economic activity. The U.S. and Mexico agreed to build the third dam in the 1944 treaty, but it remained unbuilt, until Commissioner Duran invisioned it's construction could be a solution to the water debt issue and called for its construction.

State Senator Eddie Lucio (D), Brownsville, McAllen School Board trustee Richard Moore, who states, "I think the President is going to be hurt by this", and others on this program unanimously reveal that, in their opinion, the recent school financial special session called by Governor Rick Perry to kill or change the Robin Hood financial scheme which sends funds from the rich, prodominantly Anglo school districts in the northern half of Texas to the predominantly poor and Hispanic school districts in south Texas, hurt President Bush's appeal to hispanics.

San Antonio's State Rep. Joaquin Castro, comments, "if a special session can be called to re-draw lines on a map...then one surely can be called to deal with this serious health care issue" (CHIPS).

For even more information on the CHIP problem in Texas, please see the web page for our previous edition of "Valley NewsLine with Ron Whitlock" by going to www.valleynewsline.com/archives/2004/082904.html.

Our Website Sponsors:

Email:

ron@valleynewsline.com

* This website is updated at least once a week, so for the most up-to-date information it is recommended that you "refresh" every page each time you visit this site. If you have any problems viewing these pages, or if you notice any discrepancies, please feel free to email the webmaster@valleynewsline.com and specify the problem.