By Lee Cullum
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-481321.mp3
Commentary: Tony Garza
Dallas, TX –
As Gov. Rick Perry fights for reelection, those who want relief from the campaign to come might look ahead to 2010 and the possibility by then of another face at the top of Texas politics. It's Tony Garza, former railroad commissioner and secretary of state under George W. Bush when he was governor, who now is U.S. ambassador to Mexico.
That job has grown more treacherous of late as drug violence has erupted along the border and the governors of New Mexico and Arizona have declared states of emergency made worse by federal floundering. According to press reports, Tony Garza closed the consulate in Nuevo Laredo for awhile, and bluntly told the Mexican government that drug cartels on both sides of the border were threatening investment and tourism. Indeed, twice he has warned American tourists to stay away from Nuevo Laredo. None of this has been appreciated, as the foreign minister of Mexico has made clear. It is not, he said, "the role of an ambassador" to talk like that.
Actually, Garza would be wise to drop the John Bolton act and return to his former self. It better suits leaders from Texas who long have had good relations with Mexico, while California politicians, especially former Gov. Peter Wilson, have made a special effort to antagonize Hispanics. Wilson did much to damage the Republican party in that state, damage that Tony Garza would not want to repeat in Texas.
He already has adopted an aura of unreality in his approach to immigration. Speaking in Dallas last spring, he said that what most Mexican workers want is to make some money in the U.S. and then return home. That's where their families are. That's where their culture is. But there's considerable evidence to show that many workers want to stay here and bring their families to the United States. That's why we have 11 million people living in the shadows of illegality at the moment, a number of them from Mexico. Garza did say earlier that he favors "earned legalization" for undocumented immigrants, which suggests that he understands the situation better than his speech last spring would indicate.
As a young county judge in Cameron County, along the border, Garza was an advocate for the poor, helping them find medical care and adequate water in settlements called colonias which are known to be wretched. Long before he met George W. Bush he was practicing compassionate conservatism.
The question is: how would his recent marriage to beer heiress Maria Asuncion Aramburuzabala, affect his ambitions? Garza's new wife makes Teresa Heinz Kerry look like a PTA mom. Aramburuzabala is vice chairman of Grupo Modelo, whose product, Corona, is one of the five most popular beers in the world. That makes her the most powerful businesswoman in Mexico. World Trade Magazine notes that she also has bought a stake in Grupo Televisa and dreams of a "fully wired Mexico."
Certainly her new husband seems fully wired to run for office again in Texas after he leaves the embassy in Mexico City. Will he do it? As he said here last spring, "Now I have to ask Mama." However, she probably she knew what she was getting into. Together they would do fascinating things for the governor's mansion in Austin. Given the growth of the Hispanic vote in Texas, Republicans could do a lot worse.
Lee Cullum is a contributor to the Dallas Morning News and to KERA.
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