Some Republicanos Have A Plan To Win The Hispanic Vote: George P. Bush

George Prescott Bush shouldn't even exist. By all rights, his great grandfather, Prescott Bush, should have been tried for treason and executed for a Wall Street coup attempt against Franklin Roosevelt and for his simultaneous collaboration with Hitler. No Prescott, no George H.W. Bush and no Jeb Bush, George P's grandfather and father. But Prescott was rich, white and well-connected-- and got off almost scott free for his treason. And now the latest garbage from his dynasty, his 37 year old great grandson George P., has set his sites on the presidency.

His grandma, Barbara Bush, gave him some advise about running for office: "Make a name for yourself, have a family, marry someone great, have some kids, buy a house, pay taxes, and do the things everyone also does instead of just running out and saying, 'Hey, I'm the nephew of or the son of or the grandson of...'" He's the deputy finance chairman of the Texas Republican party and has used his family connections to work in private equity investment firms. He got married and he's expecting his first kid. I guess that's something. Can I run for something now?

Although he hasn't been sure what office he wanted to run for, he knew he needed to get a start and last year, Jeb sent out a letter to his huge donor base asking them to contribute to George P.'s campaign for Texas Land Commissioner 2 years later. By January 1, he'd already received over a million dollars from Bush family connections and 2 months after that he filed to run for Land Commissioner. He's already telling people it's just a step towards the White House.

On a recent evening, George P. Bush was telling a packed room of wealthy North Texans how he got his start in politics. It was May 1979 and the then 3-year-old was in a Houston park, clutching a balloon and watching his grandfather, George H.W. Bush, announce his first campaign for president.

"It was my first memory," Bush recalled. "I was wearing a George P. Bush, er, uh, George H.W. Bush for President T-shirt."

Drowned out temporarily by laughter, Bush insisted it wasn't a Freudian flub. An aide approached a reporter scribbling notes and jokingly commanded: "Stop writing!"

The light moment underscores the dilemma of the latest scion of an American political dynasty.

How does Bush keep his family's powerful past from overwhelming his present? How can he ease into his first campaign for elected office amid lofty expectations that he will help save a Republican Party in Texas that's endangered by the state's booming Latino population?

...Bush said he considers himself an asset to the party's Hispanic outreach efforts. But he also said the GOP's long-term strategy cannot simply be running more bilingual candidates.

"I've been asked whether knowing Spanish and being Hispanic myself is a positive in getting Hispanic voters and I don't believe it is," he said. "I think Hispanics look for a friend, they look for someone who understands, whose willing to relate, to hear their issues and welcome them to the party and to their campaigns. That's what we're doing."

Bush's campaign style, though, has been criticized by some as uncomfortable, and his stump speeches occasionally can sound canned.

"I'm not running for office to be somebody but really just to do something. ... This isn't about making a statement. It's about making a difference," he told about 600 homeowners and GOP activists who crowded into the clubhouse of a new Frisco subdivision.

Bush has raised $3.3 million since November even though no Democratic candidate has emerged for land commissioner.

A Democrat hasn't won any of Texas' 29 statewide offices since 1994, the nation's longest streak of single-party dominance. But Hispanics accounted for two-thirds of Texas' population growth over the past decade and now make up 35 percent of its population. They tend to vote Democratic, with Obama capturing 71 percent of the Latino vote nationwide last year.

Closer to home, no Republican represents any majority Hispanic district in the Legislature, even though the GOP holds sizable majorities in the House and Senate. The only Hispanic ever elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas, Ted Cruz, is a Republican whose father was born in Cuba. Many top GOP leaders are counting on him and Bush to remake the party's image with Hispanics.

Gilberto Hinojosa, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, scoffs at that.

"How is it," he asked, "that these people think that if they're fortunate to be born to a Hispanic mother and are of Hispanic heritage, that gives them the right to have the support of the Hispanic community?"