Opinion: Hispanics do not speak Trump

Has anyone noticed that not a single nationally ranked or known Hispanic Republican has publicly endorsed GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump?

Despite Republican presidents since and including Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush having two simultaneous Hispanics in their cabinets, not one of those highly ranked officials has endorsed Trump.

How can this be?

Donald Trump bragged for months that because he nailed eight of 20 Hispanic Republicans polled in Nevada before their so-called “caucus” he would romp with Hispanic voters because they love him. He says that he will carry Hispanics, but there is not a scintilla of evidence that he can get a significant percentage of Hispanic voters.

Trump bragged about his overwhelming Hispanic Republican support in Nevada, which was pure fantasy. Gravis Marketing did a poll in which they asked what race Hispanics belong to when, in fact, Hispanics can be of any race. A total of 125 Republicans were polled by Gravis, of which 21 were Hispanics; eight chose Trump.

National polls by Latino Decisions and the Washington Post/Univision show that up to 87 percent of Hispanics do not approve or support Trump. Yet he says he will carry the Hispanic vote because we “love him.”

He bragged for months that he has hired thousands of Hispanics over the years but we don’t see any in his inner circle or in his family; we see them working in construction of Trump projects, we see them waiting on tables and making the bed in Trump hotels, we see them mowing grass at his golf courses – we don’t see them doing anything in the higher rungs of Trump’s alternate universe.

More damning is the fact that Trump imports foreign workers from Romania and other Eastern European countries to work in his Florida resorts even as thousands of Hispanics in the Sunshine State are available to work and actually apply but are not hired.

Why does Trump ignore Florida Hispanic applicants while importing Eastern Europeans? Why?

It doesn’t take a genius to see that Trump’s entourage lacks any known Hispanics.

There’s no “Amigos de Trump” national organization like “Amigos de Bush” in 2000.

There’s no Alberto Gonzalez around Trump. so we can expect no Hispanic nominee for attorney general. There is no Melquiades R. Martinez (Mel) who will be nominated for secretary of Housing and Urban Development like Martinez was by George W. Bush.

In fact, in July former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez told CNN: “I am not supporting Donald Trump’s comments (about federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s objectivity in the Trump University law suit against Trump). I didn’t write what I wrote in support of his comments.”

It is not to say that Hillary Clinton can be better for Hispanics than Trump. We should be seeing more well-known Democrats stumping for her, but we are not seeing it. She made Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro look silly with whispers that she was considering him for vice president. Castro doesn’t speak Spanish, except for taco and burrito.

Clinton, of course, was never serious about nominating a Hispanic for vice president. Senator Tim Kaine was chosen so he could speak Spanish to low-information voters who think that Hispanics are delighted if someone can say something more than taco and burrito.

With Hispanics possibly being 12 or more percent of the national electorate, one would expect some well-known Hispanics to publicly endorse Donald Trump, but that is not the case. Those that have are not well-known. Hispanic Republican congress people may be supporting Trump, but they are quiet about it.

President George W. Bush’s commerce secretary, lifelong Republican Carlos Gutierrez, has announced that he is voting for Hillary Clinton.

Gutierrez told the world that country comes before party. Trump, according to his view, is simply not qualified to be president of the United States. It appears that almost all Hispanic Republicans – at least the better known ones -- agree with Gutierrez. Certainly I do.