Conservative Blogger
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Trump taps Latino lawmaker from Kentucky to deliver ‘hopeful’ message to Hispanics
Kentucky State Sen. Ralph Alvarado is an unlikely primetime speaker at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night.
The 46-year-old doctor of internal medicine became the first Hispanic to ever be elected to the Kentucky General Assembly in 2014. On Wednesday night, he will join Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz as the only Latinos to speak at the GOP convention.
“It’s a primetime spot,” Alvarado said. “It’s a bit surreal still for me.”
Alvarado calls himself a Reagan-ite , someone who was inspired by President Ronald Reagan as a child of immigrant parents who came to California in pursuit of the American Dream.
His father came to the U.S. from Costa Rica in 1963. He was sponsored by an epidemiologist friend from Berkeley, California and then went on to teach himself English from a dictionary while working as a clerk for 25 cents an hour. Alvarado’s mother came from Argentina in 1967 for a college education.
As a child of two immigrant parents, Alvarado believes second, third and fourth generation Latinos do not care as much about immigration as the media would have them believe. Trump has famously pitched a strict immigration platform, highlighted by the need to build a wall. Despite the mogul's proposals, Alvarado is going to tell Latinos that Trump is better on immigration than his challenger Hillary Clinton.
“He talks about the wall, but he talks about a big beautiful door on the front of that wall,” Alvarado said. “He wants to widen the opportunity for legal immigration into the country.”
The Hispanic conservative knows that his job at the RNC is to deliver a hopeful message to America Wednesday-- but one particularly targeting Latinos, a voter group the Republican nominee is struggling with. It’s a tough job considering many Latino groups and Spanish language media have denounced Trump for what they believe are racist and offensive comments.
“There have been comments that I can’t agree with,” Alvarado said. “There’s things that he said that none of us like to hear, obviously with the judge…I know a lot of those things come from frustrations.”
Alvarado believes Latino immigrants can relate to the Republican message of the American Dream and who will choose Trump over Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee who he says evokes corrupt Latin American governments.
“We have two distinct choices this year,” Alvarado explains. “At this point we have somebody who is brutally honest, perhaps to a fault, and we have someone who is brutally dishonest and looks into the camera and looks at Americans at home and tells them complete lies and things that aren’t true, that commit crimes and are left off the hook.”
He believes the message of jobs, economic security and low taxes can resonate with Hispanic voters.
“Most of our families have left countries due to corrupt governments due to, frankly, politicians that are flat out liars. We escaped that - that’s why those countries don’t succeed people leave their home countries for the hope of what America is."
Alvarado admits he’s feeling anxious but he’s ready to deliver a powerful and positive message.
“I’m just grateful for the opportunity,” he said.
Mystery surrounds sources of many Bill Clinton speaking fees
By all accounts, it was the most popular gala the Lady Taverners had ever held. Over 1,000 people packed the Park Lane Hilton in London on Oct. 30, 2009, with the crowd overflowing into the hallways, to listen to President Bill Clinton speak on the power of giving.
While Clinton’s speech helped raise a substantial sum for the prominent cricket charity, his staggering $290,000 speaking fee was not covered by the group, according to organizers. The fee also was not covered by “World Management Limited,” the marketing company Hillary Clinton listed as the payment source in her federal financial filings.
It was bankrolled by a wealthy British businessman named Robert Whitton—a name you won’t find included in the Clintons’ public disclosure forms.
A review by the Washington Free Beacon found that Hillary Clinton often listed small foreign speaking firms as the sources of her husband’s lecture payments in her Senate and State Department disclosures, even though the actual paychecks came from undisclosed third parties.
Pence rallies GOP to unite, accepts VP nod; Cruz withholds endorsement
CLEVELAND – Mike Pence quickly accepted the Republican vice presidential nomination and then showed why Donald Trump picked him as his running mate, harkening to his Midwestern roots to appeal to GOP voters to unite against Hillary Clinton – rallying the faithful ahead of Thursday night’s crowning of Trump as the party standard-bearer.
The Indiana governor dubbed the presumptive Democratic nominee “America’s secretary of the status quo,” and called 2016 a “time for choosing.”
His address was the rally point Republicans were hoping would come from Trump’s ex-primary rival Ted Cruz, who faced angry boos from the crowd Wednesday night as he stopped short of an endorsement in his own prime-time speech.
Though Cruz congratulated Trump on his win, some delegates prodded him toward the end to throw his support behind the nominee, chanting “Trump, Trump” – Cruz paused, but closed his address with no endorsement. Cruz urged Americans to vote their “conscience,” without naming Trump.
Republican Party officials later told Fox News the speech was “classless.” One senior GOP operative said, "I'm speechless."
Technical glitches with the arena’s monitors also created some problems. But Trump soon entered the arena, his son Eric delivered a speech returning the focus to the party’s presidential nominee – and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich delivered a rousing address to set the stage for Pence.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
“So, to paraphrase Ted Cruz,” Gingrich said, “if you want to protect the Constitution of the United States, the only possible candidate this fall is the Trump-Pence Republican ticket.”
Drawing a sharp contrast between Trump and Hillary Clinton, Pence then echoed the message of party leaders the night before: It’s Trump or Clinton in November, so pick a side.
“The choice couldn’t be more clear. Americans can elect someone who literally personifies the failed establishment in Washington, D.C., or we can choose a leader who will fight every day to make America great again,” Pence said.
He added, “It’s change versus status quo, and my fellow Republicans, when Donald Trump becomes president of the United States of America the change will be huge.”
Pence appealed to voters Wednesday to “resolve here and now that Hillary Clinton will never become president of the United States of America.”
Calling Trump the “genuine article” and a “winner” who “never backs down,” he also said Trump is the candidate to confront radical Islam, cut taxes, grow the economy, shrink the bureaucracy, enforce immigration law and appoint Supreme Court justices who will uphold the Constitution.
While Pence, met with chants of “We like Mike,” made an impassioned case for the billionaire businessman, all eyes were on Cruz Wednesday night amid speculation over whether the Texas senator would use the convention dais to formally endorse his former rival.
He didn’t. His only mention of Trump was to congratulate him.
It seemed toward the end he might be considering the crowd’s noisy appeals, but he concluded by saying, “We will unite the party, we will unite the country by standing together for shared values, by standing for liberty.”
Still, his speech included a few nods to Trump’s message, including a call to build a border wall. His appearance at all on the Cleveland stage represented a reconciliation of sorts, and even without an endorsement, he appealed to voters to get to the polls.
“To those listening, please, don’t stay home in November,” he said. “If you love our country … stand and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.”
The carefully worded speech was delivered at a time when Cruz is widely believed to be positioning himself for another presidential run, be it four or eight years down the road. He is no doubt mindful that a full-throated endorsement of Trump could haunt him in the next cycle – and it seemed unlikely by Wednesday morning he would deliver one, when Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort offered no expectation of that happening.
The non-endorsement reflected the nastiness of their own primary battle, one that saw Cruz and Trump square off all the way into May in a rivalry replete with name-calling and trash-talk.
Some delegates in the convention hall remained loyal to Cruz to the end, and he received the second-highest tally during the formal nomination proceedings Tuesday night.
Cruz centered his remarks Wednesday around what he called a “return to freedom.”
“Freedom means that every human life is precious and must be protected,” he said. “Freedom means Supreme Court Justices who don’t dictate policy, but instead follow the Constitution.”
Afterward, delegate reaction was mixed. One North Carolina delegate who spoke to FoxNews.com voiced disappointment with how Cruz was treated.
A Texas delegate said Cruz “hurt” the party by not endorsing.
A source close to Cruz responded to GOP officials who criticized the non-endorsement.
"It's not classless to compliment Trump for winning,” the source said. “It's not classless to highlight areas policy where they can work together like border security, trade or fighting ISIS. It's not classless to call on all his supporters to not stay home but turnout."
Another ex-primary candidate Marco Rubio made a brief appearance, via video message, right before Cruz spoke, saying, “The time for fighting is over.”
Former 2016 candidate and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker spoke shortly before Rubio, with the message, “America deserves better than Hillary Clinton.”
GOP officials rip Cruz for withholding Trump support, Gingrich gives endorsement on his behalf
Republican officials slammed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz Wednesday night after he failed to endorse presidential nominee Donald Trump during his convention speech.
One RNC official called Cruz's speech "classless," while a senior GOP operative on the convention floor told Fox News, "I could not believe it. I literally could not believe [Cruz] didn't endorse Trump. I'm speechless."
Cruz, a rival of Trump's during primary season, was booed off the stage after ignoring cries from delegates to formally back the party's presidential candidate.
The cacophany of noise and discontent was amplified when the nominee himself walked into the Quicken Loans Arena as Cruz was finishing his speech.Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn't honor the pledge! I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 21, 2016
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who spoke later in the evening, departed from his prepared text to attempt to recast Cruz's remarks as an endorsement of Trump.
Gingrich, a strong Trump supporter, noted what he described as the real estate mogul's "generosity" in allowing Cruz to address the delegates in Cleveland and said that the audience had "misunderstood" the point of the speech.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
"So to paraphrase Ted Cruz," Gingrich added, "the only way to protect that is to vote for the Trump/Pence ticket."
By contrast, Gingrich's prepared remarks included only a single mention of Cruz, saying that the Texas senator's remarks "made the key point that we need to elect the Trump-Pence Republican ticket."
A source close to Cruz's inner circle acknowledged to Fox News that the end of the speech "was tough, but sometimes standing for principle means getting booed."
"It's not classless to compliment Trump for winning," the source added. "It's not classless to highlight areas of policy where they can work together like border security, trade or fighting ISIS. It's not classless to call on all his supporters to not stay home, but turn out."
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