For decades, Hispanic voters, with the exception of Cubans in Florida, have favored Democrats to Republicans, by as much as 70 percent to 30 percent. President Bush, a former governor of Texas who speaks Spanish, decided in the 2004 campaign to aggressively pursue the Hispanic vote.
Finally I thought they'd decided to kill that one. Scott McClellan:
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the assertion did not ring true to him because, "The president speaks Spanish, but not that well."
"I'm saying that not only was that suggestion absurd, but that he couldn't possibly sing the national anthem in Spanish. He's not that good with his Spanish," McClellan said.
If you don't speak Spanish "that well" you don't speak Spanish.
Bumiller:
When he was the managing partner of the Texas Rangers, he reveled in going into the dugout and joking with the players, many of them Hispanic, in fractured Spanglish.
It's long been a joke that the press has pretended that Bush, who speaks Spanish at the level of someone who remembers a bit from their one year of college Spanish 30 years ago, could speak Spanish. I thought when Bush was playing his "run from the Mexicans" game we'd finally killed that one. Guess not.