January 5, 2005
DEMOCRATS' HISPANIC BASE HAS YET TO MATERIALIZE

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

Political power results from votes, not potential. That's why, at least locally, "Hispanic political power" is an oxymoron, and it does not yet exist in Chicago and Illinois, even though it exists elsewhere in the nation.

According to the 2000 census, Hispanics are America's major minority, as the U.S. Hispanic population nearly doubled between 1990 and 2000, due to both immigration and high birth rates. Nationwide, Hispanics now number 37.6 million, while blacks number 36.1 million. During that period, Hispanics grew from 19.6 percent to 26 percent of the population in Chicago, from 13.5 percent to 19.9 percent in Cook County and from 2.9 percent to 12.3 percent in the state.

The expanding areas of Hispanic growth in Chicago are Albany Park, Cragin and Logan Square on the Northwest Side, South Lawndale on the West Side, Archer Heights and West Lawn near Midway Airport on the Southwest Side, and the area near Hegewisch on the Far Southeast Side. In the Cook County suburbs, Cicero, Melrose Park, Berwyn and Stone Park have experienced explosive Hispanic population growth, as have Aurora, Waukegan, Elgin, Wood Dale, Addison and Bensenville in the Collar Counties.

However, according to a recent poll, the liberalism of national Democrats is estranging them from Hispanics on a cultural level, and, according to attorney Frank Avila, the local Democratic Party, including Mayor Rich Daley and the city political establishment, "is not relating to Hispanics" on a political level by "failing to support Hispanics for major political office."

 Avila's father, M. Frank Avila, is one of nine Metropolitan Water Reclamation District commissioners and the highest elected county Hispanic. He ran for water district commissioner three times and finally won in 2002, despite opposition in each race by the county Democratic organization. Frank Avila ran a close race for water district commissioner in the 2004 Democratic primary, and he is expected to run again in 2006. He says that within a decade the Hispanic vote in Chicago and the county suburbs will be a "colossus," but that it may not be overwhelmingly or even predictably Democratic, as is the black vote.

Nevertheless, Democratic politicians read numbers, and, to date, the "Hispanic numbers" are somewhere between puny and pathetic.

For example, in the 2004 Democratic primary for U.S. senator won by Barack Obama, attorney and former Chicago school board president Gery Chico, who is Hispanic, finished a dismal fifth, despite having raised and spent more than $4 million. He got just 52,132 votes (4.3 percent) statewide, compared to Obama's 642,305 (53.2 percent). In the seven Chicago wards with Hispanic majorities and Hispanic aldermen, Chico got 8,745 votes, while Obama got 11,138, and in Cicero he got 1,198 votes, almost double Obama's 617. The clear conclusion: Hispanics, when they vote, don't necessarily vote for Hispanic candidates, and the Hispanic vote is anemic.

In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry got 80,400 votes in Chicago's Hispanic wards, to George Bush's 20,593. Kerry also won Cicero 9,707-5,093. However, of Kerry's 2,313,415 votes in Illinois, only slightly more than 125,000 of that number were supplied by Hispanic voters -- or about 5.4 percent.

Nationally, exit polls indicated that Bush got about 44 percent of the Hispanic vote, up from 37 percent in 2000. But while the president's Hispanic support increased measurably in such states as Texas, Florida and California, it remained flat in Illinois, barely topping 25 percent.

However, according to a survey of 600 registered Hispanic voters in Cook County conducted from Nov. 20 to 22 by McCulloch Research and Polling, with a margin of error of 3.8 percent, the Republicans have no cause for gloom. On cultural and fiscal issues, the respondents are notably conservative: 67.2 percent oppose gay marriage, 43.5 percent oppose abortion in any circumstance (while 36.8 percent support it), 57 percent back school vouchers that would give a tax credit to parents who send their children to private schools, 70 percent support the death penalty for capital crimes, 49 percent favor the Bush Administration's immigration plan to allow "illegal aliens" to stay in America for a limited period, and 60.2 percent feel that their federal, state and county taxes are "too high."

However, on economic and defense issues, Hispanic respondents are more liberal, with 70.8 percent supporting an increase in the minimum wage (which goes up to $6.50 per hour in 2005), 65.2 percent backing government-paid, universal health care, and 53.2 percent opposing the war in Iraq.

The poll then sought opinions of various politicians, categorizing the results into favorable/unfavorable scores, with the remainder being either "cannot rate" or "not heard of."

When rating non-Hispanic politicians, President Bush had a 39.8/35.5 favorable/unfavorable score, and only 30 percent of the respondents said they voted for him. The most popular was Obama, with a 75.4/10.8 percent score, followed by Daley, with 60.5/26.4, and Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn, with 50.8/20. Lagging behind were Governor Rod Blagojevich, with 40.8/22.3, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, with 33/14, Cook County Board President John Stroger, with 35/34, Republican state Treasurer Judy Barr Topinka, with 39.3/17.3, and Alderman Ed Burke, with 25.1/7.5.

The most popular politician among respondents is former city treasurer Miriam Santos, with a 59.1/23.9 score; she was unknown to only 6.2 percent of those polled. Santos, who is Puerto Rican, was indicted by the U.S. Attorney's Office in 1999 on 12 counts, including attempted extortion, mail fraud and wire fraud, and then quickly convicted and jailed. That conviction was overturned on appeal, and Santos pleaded guilty to one count of felony mail fraud, but now she is trying to persuade the U.S. Department of Justice to vacate that plea, allegedly because certain exculpatory information was not admitted at the initial trial. Hispanics obviously view her sympathetically, and she could be a formidable political force in the future if she is vindicated.

A close second in popularity, but with the greatest name recognition, is U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez, with a score of 52.5/37.3; he was unknown to only 2 percent of respondents. Gutierrez, who is Puerto Rican, is a former alderman, a strong ally of Daley, and a potential mayoral candidate when Daley retires. However, he is an outspoken liberal on cultural and economic issues, and his high negatives reflect his unpopularity among many Hispanics, particularly Mexican Americans. Chico had a 19.3/6.3 score, was unknown to 19.2 percent, and could not be rated by 55.2 percent -- a clear indication that his campaign never connected with Hispanics . . . or anybody else.

The next tier is the "Avila Familia," padre and hijo. M. Frank Avila, who is Mexican-American, had a 41.3/7.2 score but was unknown to 30.7 percent and could not be rated by 20.8 percent. Frank Avila, who has hosted a cable television show for many years, had a 38.9/11.8 score but was unknown to 27.2 percent and could not be rated by 22.2 percent. Longtime newspaper columnist Juan Andrade had a 36.2/19.1 score and was unknown to 23.3 percent.

Next was a group with some level of recognition. Board of Review commissioner Joe Berrios, the 35th Ward Democratic committeeman, had a 23.4/7.8 score and was unknown to 64.7 percent. Cook County Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno, who lost two races for Cicero town president and who is poised to run against Stroger for County Board president in the 2006 Democratic primary, had a 12.7/8.7 score and was unknown to 49.5 percent. State Senator Miguel del Valle had a 12.3/7.7 score and was unknown to 44.8 percent. Alderman Manny Flores, seen as a future Hispanic leader, had a 22.5/4.2 score and was unknown to 43.5 percent.

One surprising result of the poll is the diminishing esteem accorded the Hispanic Democratic Organization, a political adjunct of the Daley Administration. Founded a decade ago by attorney Victor Reyes, a Daley insider and a former director of the city intergovernmental affairs office, and now run by city Department of Streets and Sanitation commissioner Al Sanchez, the HDO deploys Hispanic city workers into Hispanic areas to work for Daley-backed Hispanic candidates.

But now the HDO is enmeshed in the city's "Hired Truck" scandal. Angelo Torres, a former street gang member, ran the program, and he was among the 14 people recently indicted by the U.S. attorney on corruption and bribery charges. Torres reportedly was sponsored for his job by the HDO, and the trail of his alleged bribes has yet to be determined. Will it lead back to the organization? After all, it takes substantial funding to support the HDO's far-flung precinct operations.

The McCulloch poll found that 55.7 percent of respondents are familiar with the HDO, that it has a 16.9/51.5 favorable/unfavorable rating, and that it has a 48.8/17.2 percent "less likely/more likely" score in terms of voting for somebody backed by the HDO.

Despite an anemic vote base, Hispanic politicians are already bestirring themselves: Santos and Gutierrez are focusing on the 2007 Chicago mayoral election, and Frank Avila and Moreno are set to run in the 2006 Democratic primary. Also, Chicago police officer Peter Garza, president of the Hispanic Law Enforcement Association, is angling for the Republican nomination for Cook County sheriff.

(Next week: A look at local Hispanic rivalries.)