Latino Flap Over Visit by Bush’s Son Dies Quietly--in Political Tradition

In politics, 24-hour controversies are as commonplace as exaggerated rhetoric and campaign signs left up after Election Day--a maxim vividly demonstrated by the dispute over the San Diego visit of Vice President George Bush’s son this week.

Ending as abruptly as it began, a political firestorm fanned Tuesday by complaints from some local Latino leaders that they had been left out of the planning for Jeb Bush’s visit was doused Wednesday by the time young Bush concluded his Mission Valley meeting with about 60 Latino Republicans.

‘Boiled Down to One Guy Being Upset’

“That’s politics--today’s fight is over tomorrow,” said Jack Templeton, executive director of the Golden Eagle Club, an organization of major GOP donors that sponsored Jeb Bush’s visit, billed as a forum on Latino issues. “I think this whole thing pretty much boiled down to one guy being upset . . . and getting a lot of publicity.”

That “one guy” is Nicolas Britto, chairman of the San Diego Republican Hispanic Assembly, who said earlier this week that his 75-member group planned to boycott Bush’s appearance to protest organizers’ “inexcusable mistake” of excluding Latinos from the planning of the meeting.

The perceived snub, Britto said Tuesday, showed that “Bush and the Republicans still have a long way to go” to attract Latino votes and that it exacerbated local Latinos’ displeasure over the fact that no Latino delegates from San Diego were selected to attend next week’s Republican National Convention in New Orleans.

“We have a point to make, and the best way to make it is to not be there,” Britto said on the eve of Jeb Bush’s visit.

However, when Wednesday’s meeting arrived, Britto was in the audience, and he later spoke privately with Jeb Bush for about 45 minutes to discuss Latino issues and his concerns over the role that Latinos will play in the Republican presidential campaign.

The explanation of that quick turnaround illustrates another political axiom--namely, how there often are as many versions of events as there are participants.

Rosalia Atilano, an aide to Assemblyman Bill Bradley (R-Escondido) and co-chairwoman of a statewide Latino group working on George Bush’s behalf, said Thursday that she and several other local Latinos had--contrary to the impression created by Britto’s earlier remarks--helped plan Jeb Bush’s visit. Moreover, she added that she had asked Britto “to try to help and he chose not to respond.”

“I really don’t know why Nicolas ended up going to the meeting other than perhaps to say, ‘Look, I’m a team player,’ ” Atilano said.

Britto, though, said Thursday that Atilano had simply asked him “to bring people to the event after everything had already been planned.”

“That’s not participation--that’s tokenism,” Britto said.

He changed his mind about attending the meeting, Britto explained, after receiving a call from a party leader asking him to help greet the vice president’s son when he arrived at the airport. There, Bush, according to Britto’s account, told him: “On behalf of my father, I’d like to make a personal request for you to attend the meeting.”

“No one in politics is going to reject an invitation from the vice president,” Britto said. “So, as a courtesy to the vice president, I went.”

Skeptical of that everyone-shook-hands-and-made-up story, the Golden Eagle’s Templeton theorized that the brief controversy had been contrived by Britto simply to generate some self-aggrandizing publicity.

“Every four years at this time, Nick Britto comes out of some dark place and proclaims himself to be the great Hispanic leader of the county,” Templeton said. “As far as I’m concerned, the only person who follows Britto is himself.”

Still, Templeton conceded that newspaper stories detailing Britto’s complaints produced saturation press coverage of Bush’s appearance, an event that otherwise might have attracted little news media attention.