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Este informe no está disponible en español. CommentaryTHE ORLANDO SENTINELHispanic Voters Don't Walk In Lock Step With A Political Partyby Myriam MarquezJuly 31, 2000 A look at voter-registration numbers and two new polls of Hispanic voters favor Al Gore for president. Connect the dots another way in this political puzzle, and the face of Texas Gov. George W. Bush emerges to win. It's complicated. Even though almost three in five Hispanic voters are registered Democrats, polls keep showing that about one-third of Hispanic Democrats identify with politically conservative causes. Another one-third are moderates. Hispanic voters do not move in lock step with one political party or another. Like most Americans today, Hispanics base their vote on issues and on a candidate's personality and values. Hispanics care most about education, crime and health care. That's according to a national poll of 2,700 likely Latino voters conducted for Knight-Ridder newspapers and released by The Miami Herald last week. Those issues mirror the sentiments expressed by most Americans, regardless of their race or ethnicity. Only the order of those priorities is slightly different in polls of a cross-section of Americans, with education, followed by health care and then crime on the list. A candidate's values count, too, which must worry Gore. Sixty-five percent of Hispanics said having a president who can restore moral values for the nation is important, the Knight-Ridder poll found. By all accounts, Gore is a decent family man. But President Clinton's affair with a White House intern produced high negatives in public opinion and that could hurt Gore. Even though most people didn't want Clinton impeached, they disliked his defensiveness during the ordeal. The vice president's loyalty to Clinton could hurt him among Hispanic voters, particularly the one in five who are not affiliated with either party. As of June, Gore significantly beat Bush in the polls, though. He received almost 54 percent support in a survey of 1,000 Latinos in five states with the heaviest concentration of Hispanics -- California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas. One-third of those surveyed in the Public Broadcasting poll preferred Bush, and the rest were undecided. Gore can't count on polls, though. Bush's success with Latino voters in Texas -- he received almost half of their votes in the last gubernatorial election even though a majority there are registered Democrats -- will keep Gore busy. The stakes are high. Hispanics are a growing force in major states that hold the key to an Electoral College majority and presidential victory: Florida, California, Illinois, New York and Texas. Crossover votes are not unusual, even in Florida where Cuban-Americans are the largest Hispanic voting group. In 1996, for instance, many Cuban-American voters -- two-thirds registered Republican -- broke ranks with the Grand Old Party. Clinton won more than half the Hispanic vote in South Florida. Hispanics were turned off by several anti-immigrant measures passed by the Republican majority in Congress between 1994 and 1996 -- policies that affected thousands of elderly or disabled Latinos. This year, it will be difficult for Gore to make inroads among Cuban-American voters because so many feel betrayed by the Clinton administration in the custody dispute over Elian Gonzalez. Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics may help Gore, though not decisively, in Florida. Mexicans make up 50 percent of the nation's Hispanics, so it's no surprise that Gore recently talked about having one grandchild born on the Fourth of July and yearning for the next one to be born on Cinco de Mayo. Talk about pandering. Bush is trotting out his own weapon to court Mexican-Americans: nephew George P., the handsome 20-something son of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Mexican-born Columba. This year neither candidate can take Hispanic voters for granted. And it shows.
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