Message Man

Repairing the damage: As Republican National Committee co-chairman, Mel Martinez is taking a two-pronged approach to repairing the GOP's relationship with Hispanics, using a combination of high-visibility public appearances and a moderate approach to immigration reform. [Photo: Katherine Lambert]

The early years of the new century gave Republicans reason to be hopeful that their courtship of Hispanic voters was working. In presidential races, for example, the GOP's share of Hispanic voters increased from the 35% who voted for George W. Bush in 2000 to the 44% Bush got in 2004.

But by the spring of 2006, Sen. Mel Martinez had begun warning his GOP colleagues that Republicans were alienating Hispanic voters -- particularly with their build-a-fence approach to immigration issues. His predictions played out in the 2006 elections, when Hispanic residents voted 69% Democrat and 30% Republican, according to national exit polls.

In the process, the 2006 election seemed to confirm the conventional political wisdom that views Hispanic voters -- 13.3% of the electorate in Florida and 8.6% nationally -- as important swing voters. Even Florida's Hispanic voters, traditionally viewed as Republican-leaning, were in play in 2006, with Charlie Crist and Jim Davis splitting the Hispanic vote. Little Havana, a Cuban-American corner of Miami generally considered a Republican enclave, elected a Democrat to represent it in the Florida Legislature, Miami Beach Commissioner Luis Garcia.

Listen to a narrated biography of Mel Martinez here.

Despite his spring forecast to party leaders, Martinez says he was caught off guard when President Bush called him six days after the election and asked him to chair the Republican National Committee. Bush told Martinez that Mike Duncan, a Kentuckian who was the RNC's general counsel, would serve as co-chairman and run the committee. Martinez's job would be to spearhead the party's outreach efforts, specifically to court Hispanic voters for the '08 election.

This time, however, Martinez, 60, faces a tougher challenge. The GOP lost both chambers of Congress to Democrats in the 2006 elections. Bush's approval ratings -- in the 30% range -- are at all-time lows. And not everybody in the GOP is enthralled with Martinez's selection. Several RNC members, in fact, attempted unsuccessfully to scuttle his nomination. In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, GOP activist Bay Buchanan, sister to one-time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, complained bitterly that "the party chairman ... should energize the base. We are demoralized. Why is the party divided as it is? Four reasons: George Bush, Bush's amnesty, Bush's war and Bush's spending. And, so, who does he put in -- head of the party to unite it? A Bush apologist. It doesn't make any sense."

Tags: Politics & Law, Government/Politics & Law