August 11, 2005
Houston Latinos
By Karl-Thomas Musselman
Though High Powered Consultant Marc Campos seems to have gone quiet on his "run aware from everywhere" approach to winning back Texas, he does highlight an important point about two targets for the TDP. Latinos and Houston. Actually, Latinos in Houston.
You've heard it from Commentary before. There are more Latinos in Harris County (Houston) than there are in the Rio Grande Valley. There are more Latinos in Harris County than there are in Bexar County (San Antonio). Houston has 17 (at last count) radio stations that target the Latino community. We have two Spanish language daily newspapers and over a dozen Spanish language weekly newspapers. We have four local Spanish language TV stations - two of them are full service with local news staffs. Over half of the student population at the Houston Independent School District (the state's largest) is Latino.
Heck, I don't even think that the State Dem Chair has visited the Houston Latino community. Commentary has said it before, in order for Dems to start making a statewide comeback, Harris County has to be a priority. Why? Cause we're the largest county in the state, with the largest Latino population. Now that's a whole lot of Dem vote potential. Makes sense to Commentary. Unfortunately, the Houston area Latino community won't get any attention from folks like the DNC unless folks know we exist - so far, folks don't know we exist
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Harris County has always lagged behind the other urban counties of Texas in overall turnout which is a shame as it could be a base of 100,000s of new Democratic votes that would be easier to find than say the Panhandle. Not that we shouldn't be turning them out in the Panhandle as well, but if we could put Harris County into the D column as Dallas is about to, our efforts statewide would be greatly aided.
Posted by Karl-Thomas Musselman at August 11, 2005 06:00 AM
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Howard Dean has been DNC chair for about five minutes. In that time he has hired a new staff represented heavily by Latinos, many of whom are native Texans or have ties to Texas. Anyone who went to San Antonio last weekend could see that! Marc Campos does NOT represent the Latino community. Can I make a suggestion?? If you want to guage Latino Democrats' feelings, ask them directly or go to a real consultant. I guarantee you the response you get will be nothing close to what Marc says. I'll tell you what I think. I am from Houston, I work with our local Latino candidates and electeds and I've organized at the grassroots level. Governor Dean and the DNC gave us access to the DNC pollster and research NOT AVAILABLE to the media or the general public. They asked us for our opinions, made commitments to us in Texas to keep the support going in cash and other resources. But, I guess, if Gov. Dean didn't personally go to the Heights and ring Marc Campos' doorbell, none of what I just said matters.
This seems a no brainer, especially in light of recent Census report that counts Hispanics as largest minority group in Texas at 32 percent of the state's entire population. The TDP and the DNC need to start throwing around some major PR dollars in Houston.
Sandra, that's good to hear. I'm not familiar with Houston all that much, but if that kind of access is happening out there, this bodes well for the future. I hope that our new state hires will be helpful as well.
Actually, Derek, the largest minority group in Texas is Anglo Whites. We make up about 49% of the population, a minority.
I think that at the point when Latinos, African-Americans and Asians comprise more of this state than Anglos (and will do so nationally by 2050) we need to update our language. I don't like the term "people of color" (it is just a rearrangement of Colored People, which is uncouth), and non-White sounds even worse (kinda like calling the genders male and non-male). I don't know what we should call them, but minority certainly isn't accurate any more.
We could call them Texans.
As one of "them," I agree with K-T.
