AUSTIN — Hispanic candidates ran strong in many Republican primary races across Texas this week, but two candidates are blaming their losses on racially polarized voting.
Election returns and political consultants, however, say the losses of Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Leo Vasquez and Railroad Commissioner Victor Carrillo had more to do with personal issues and poorly run campaigns than ethnicity.
Carrillo's father and half-brother died last year, and Carrillo underwent surgery for a benign brain tumor, all affecting the time he spent campaigning for re-election. Vasquez lost social conservative support, local Republicans said, because he lives with a woman married to another man.
Carrillo started the ethnic angst with an e-mail to supporters indicating racial bias had cost him re-election. That was followed up by Vasquez's campaign manager and girlfriend, SuZanne Feather, sending out an e-mail saying there were “many similarities” between Carrillo and Vasquez's loss on Tuesday to tea party activist Don Sumners. Vasquez joined in during an interview with the Houston Chronicle.
“It is perplexing that someone could basically spend no money whatsoever and mount no campaign and win as handily as he did,” Vasquez said. “The same thing happened in the Victor Carrillo race as well.”
But Vasquez's predecessor in office, Paul Bettencourt said Vasquez lost because he had issues in his personal life that cost him the support of social conservative organizations.
Consultant Allen Blakemore, speaking for social conservative leader Steve Hotze, said Republicans were upset with Vasquez for settling a voter-registration lawsuit with Democrats and for not being as vocal on property tax increases as Bettencourt. Blakemore said the “final blow” came when social conservative leaders learned Vasquez lives with a woman married to another man.
Vasquez admitted social conservative leaders Hotze and Terry Lowry “probably got him (Sumners) another 10,000 votes and maybe even made the full difference between us.”
“The Republican Party, especially in Harris County, has been, unfortunately, overly controlled and influenced by a small, but vocal group on the religious right, and we need to get back to the core principles of fiscal conservative issues rather than these social issues that are being perpetuated by that small, but vocal, minority,” Vasquez said.
He refused to discuss whether his personal life made a difference. He and Feather said they have had a relationship for a decade.
“Our relationship never seemed to be an issue while we were out writing the checks and putting up the signs and doing other grass-roots work for the Republican Party,” Vasquez said.
Carrillo, who won the 2004 Republican nomination by defeating an Anglo in a runoff, stunned many Republicans by putting out an e-mail blaming his loss Tuesday to a little-known opponent, David Porter, on racially biased voting.
“Early polling showed that the typical GOP primary voter has very little info about the position of Railroad Commissioner, what we do, or who my opponent or I were,” Carrillo said in an e-mail to supporters. “Given the choice between “Porter” and “Carrillo” — unfortunately, the Hispanic-surname was a serious setback from which I could never recover although I did all in my power to overcome this built-in bias.”
Outreach efforts
Republicans have been trying to reach out to Hispanic voters in recent years, but they have been hurt by anti-immigration rhetoric that some take to be anti-Hispanic sentiments. Carrillo's statement likely will fuel that fire.
Election returns from Tuesday's voting show Carrillo lost not only statewide but also in traditionally Hispanic counties, such as Hidalgo and Cameron.
In the Supreme Court Place 9 race, down the ballot from the Railroad Commission race, there were more than 1.1 million ballots cast in a race that gave Eva Guzman the nomination over Rose Vela — meaning at least some of the voters who cast ballots for Porter also voted for one of the Hispanic women.
Republican consultant Ted Delisi said Carrillo spent far less than Railroad Commissioners Elizabeth Ames Jones or Michael Williams did on their re-election campaigns and said Carrillo did little personal campaigning.
“In the end, a bad campaign is just a bad campaign,” Delisi said.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metr...98049.html
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Defeated Hispanic Republican Incumbents blame losses on ethnic bias
Of course, we ALL know that Republicans AREN'T racist and DON'T want to send Hispanics back to the Latin American country of origin. 
