After last week's election, you might think Republican campaign consultants and strategists - especially in California, where Democrats steamrolled the GOP - would not be in high demand.
But there's at least one Republican consultant in the Golden State whose phone has barely stopped ringing. That would be Hector Barajas, a Sacramento strategist who has long worked to bring Latino voters into the Republican flock.
Last year, when several Republicans in the Assembly led a rally at the Capitol to call for an Arizona-style immigration law in California, Barajas was there condemning the event.
Barajas has fielded calls from states across the nation, from the Republican National Committee and even from sitting members of Congress, seeking advice on how to woo the fastest-growing demographic in the country.
He's got plenty of advice: Begin outreach now, not five months before the next election. Remember that both the message and the messenger are important. And don't just focus on immigration.
"If you do immigration reform, that doesn't solve your problem," Barajas said, adding that such reform would have a political shelf life of about a year. "The problem isn't just immigration reform. The problem is being in the community and showing up."
Republicans in other states also are keen on Barajas - who also is the communications director for the GOP in the state Senate - because of a training program for Latino Republican candidates he helped found, called Grow Elect. In local races across California, 21 Latino Republicans that were part of the program won their elections on Nov. 6.
About that election: There's plenty of navel gazing around Sacramento about the forces that drove the outcomes of candidate races and ballot measures in California, and two of the state's top pollsters gave a noontime crowd plenty to chew on this week.
This election was a "turning point" in terms of minority voters flexing their political muscle, according to Mark DiCamillo, director of Field Poll. He said a full 40 percent of the electorate was made up of Latino, Asian American and African American voters.
"We've never had a turnout of ethnic voters of that size before," DiCamillo told a luncheon crowd at the Sacramento Press Club. He said President Obama's wide margin of victory and the passage of Gov. Jerry Brown's Proposition 30 both are attributable to these voters.
Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California, said the election put California into the Democratic Party's grip more than ever before.
"We now really are a deep blue state," he said.
One audience member asked how Republicans might regain ground they've lost in elections.
DiCamillo had a short, and sharp, answer: "Divide the state in two, and govern inland California."
A tale of two Browns: The governor made back-to-back stops at meetings of the California State University trustees and the University of California regents this week, and while his goal was the same - getting the university leaders to put off a vote on tuition and fee increases - the governor delivered much different messages to the systems.
At CSU in Long Beach, Brown made a short statement thanking the trustees for their help in passing Proposition 30 and mostly sat quiet at the meeting.
At the UC meeting in San Francisco, he grilled university leaders about how they were spending money and why the university's debt had doubled.
There seems to be an obvious reason for the change in demeanor: UC officials want an additional $126.5 million in next year's budget and have threatened to raise tuition if they don't get what they want. CSU leaders made no such demand.
Source: http://feeds.sfgate.com/click.phdo?i=bacc57b5a690c6afb3360e858b2400c6
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