Bush Wooed ‘Em and Won in Democratic El Paso

George W. Bush’s maiden trip to California as president presents him with a hostile governor, an angry public and a prevailing sense that, politically, the state is a lost cause.

The circumstances are a lot like those he confronted in Texas when he set out to woo and win this Democratic stronghold on the Rio Grande, which rejected him in his first run for governor.

Through a combination of charm, good luck and perseverance, Bush succeeded--barely. Winning reelection in a landslide, he became the first Republican ever to carry El Paso County in a major statewide race, squeaking by on a ratio of less than 700 votes from a population of about 700,000.

Now, White House strategists hold out Bush’s success here as a model for how the president hopes to make friends and ultimately prevail in a deeply skeptical California.

If Bush has snubbed the state up to now--he got around to visiting 29 others beforehand--aides say it is still plenty early to make amends. In courting El Paso, Bush “realized it was something that would take time, not happen instantaneously,” said Karl Rove, the chief White House political strategist, who held the same role for then-Gov. Bush. “He worked it hard and never gave up.”

The way Bush seduced this hard-luck border town illustrates something fundamental about the president’s success in politics. El Paso is a poor city with some of the worst schools in the country. Things didn’t improve much under Bush’s policies. But his personality won people over anyway.

He visited more than any governor in history, showing he cared enough to come all the way from the state capital in Austin, 600 miles east. After feeling neglected for so long, “El Paso was just grateful for any kind of attention,” said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas political science teacher and veteran Bush-watcher.

California, the center of its own universe, will probably prove a much tougher sell.

El Paso is the fifth-biggest city in Texas, with a population of roughly 575,000. Wedged in a corner between Mexico and New Mexico, it is separated from the rest of the state by a desolate brown stretch of nowhere. Physically, it is closer to Palm Springs than Houston. It’s even in a different time zone than the rest of the state.

The metropolitan area ranks near the bottom nationally in per capita income and near the top in the number of people lacking health insurance. The El Paso School District has a staggering 87.5% dropout rate.

The city is roughly three-quarters Latino and about 20% white. But if one thing unites everyone, it is a deep-seated sense that El Paso is treated shabbily by the rest of the state.

When it comes to paying for education, highways and social services, Texas is stingy to start. But the city makes out even worse under funding formulas tied to population and political representation. Locals gripe that the city is perennially shortchanged; under the state’s Medicaid program, for instance, doctors on the border get $366 for treating a newborn while those in Houston receive $588.

“The fact is we’re a stepchild in Austin,” said El Paso County Atty. Jose Rodriguez, who has gone to court to fight the state for more highway and health care money.

After Bush became governor in 1995, he set about to change perceptions that El Paso was being ignored. He started with token gestures, such as hanging a Southwestern landscape by Tom Lea, El Paso’s revered artist, in his Capitol office. He played up his wife’s family ties to the city.

More substantively, Bush appointed a record number of local officials to state boards and commissions, which wield considerable power in Texas. He also put the state’s muscle behind a long-running feud with New Mexico over water rights, securing a more reliable and plentiful supply for the city.

He cultivated strong ties with Mexico, opposed efforts to make English the official state language and shunned the superheated rhetoric that his California counterpart, Republican Pete Wilson, was directing at the problem of illegal immigration.

But perhaps most important, Bush started visiting El Paso. And when he showed up, he stuck around, hiking the Franklin Mountains, going to church and stopping for pan dulce and coffee at the Bowie Bakery, an institution in the Segundo Barrio section. “He chose sites near and dear to people,” said Mayor Carlos Ramirez, a conservative Democrat who endorsed Bush’s reelection and last year traveled the country campaigning for him for president.

Critics, citing El Paso’s many festering problems, say about all that Bush did was show up and have his picture taken.

“That courtship was well designed,” said Eliot Shapleigh, El Paso’s Democratic state senator. “Lots of photo ops, many schoolkids, well-tested phrases like ‘juntos podemos’ [together we can do it].”

But there was little substance, Shapleigh continued, describing Bush’s border policy as, “Besos, bunuelos and buena suerte”--or kisses, sweetbread and good luck.

Yet even critics concede that Bush’s approach paid off politically. “It was the novelty of having a governor seemingly paying attention to the community by coming over here frequently, by going to our restaurants and uttering a few words here and there of Spanish,” said County Atty. Rodriguez. “In my opinion, it was all a very superficial approach, but it turned out to be very effective.”

When he first was elected governor, in 1994, Bush lost El Paso County to incumbent Democrat Ann Richards by 10,000 votes out of roughly 90,000 cast. Four years later, seeking reelection, he faced a weak and terribly underfunded opponent, state Land Commissioner Garry Mauro.

With victory all but inevitable, Bush had the luxury of lavishing special resources and attention on El Paso. By then, a run for the White House was on many people’s minds and a strong showing here was a part of the calculation.

“The campaign felt this would send a strong signal to the nation that he could win Latino votes and he could go into a Democratic stronghold and win,” said Reggie Bashur, a GOP strategist who served in Bush’s first administration.

When he launched his campaign, Bush chose El Paso as one of four cities for the kickoff. He insisted that the sole debate be staged here (on a Friday night during high school football season, guaranteeing a tiny statewide audience) and aired TV ads specially designed for El Paso. It was the only such tailored advertising that his campaign produced.

The formation of “Housekeepers for Bush,” headed by the maid of his El Paso coordinator, struck some as a bit over the top.

Still, for all his efforts, Bush just barely won the county, by 677 votes out of about 91,000. It was an unlikely victory and one that stung local Democrats. “We learned our lesson,” said Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), who helped bring the region back to the Democratic fold with a thumping Al Gore victory over Bush in November.

The question is what lessons may apply to California, where Bush faces a Democratic establishment, from Gov. Gray Davis on down, solidly arrayed against him. He lost the state to Gore by 1.3 million votes, even though he outspent him by roughly $20 million and visited during the campaign far more often.

Democrats are understandably dubious. “I don’t want to cast aspersions on the good people of El Paso, but they’re still Texans, with all due respect,” said Garry South, who is Davis’ top political aide. “In California, we have about as much in common with El Paso, Texas, as we do with the moon.”

So far, Bush has not followed his El Paso script with much precision. He has appointed three Californians to his Cabinet and a handful more to high-level jobs. But rather than siding with California, the way he did in El Paso’s water fight, Bush has been sharply at odds with the state in disputes over energy and the environment.

And when he finally visits, he won’t linger. His first stop in the state is expected to last less than 48 hours.

But Buchanan, the University of Texas professor, said one of Bush’s strengths is the ability to set a goal and pursue it, “even when other people have written him off.”

“I think California is far less prone to question its own stature and standing, so throwing a bone isn’t going to be quite as effective,” Buchanan said. “But the positive lesson would be that in spite of what the numbers and political experts say, if you go out and show you haven’t given up, you’ll get more votes than you otherwise would--even if it’s not enough.”

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