Former Senator Hightower and the Hispanic vote give insight to Pro-Amnesty McCain

John McCain's connection to former Texas Senator to John Hightower is revealing regarding for the Amnesty issue and who was a mentor of his is interesting.  Hightower is the first GOP Politician to go after the Hispanic vote and higher Hispanic Ad Man Lionel Sosa(see Time below) who Ronald Reagan hired and later Dubya following the Reagan strategy hired to get the Hispanic Vote as well.  McCain "was influenced to go into politics by senators of both parties, and especially by a strong bond with Republican Senator John Tower of Texas, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.^[55} From Wikipedia^" 

 

 

From The Arizona Republic

 

Some of these leaders, most notably Tower, would leave a lasting influence on McCain.

Tower, R-Texas, would serve in the Senate until 1985. Later, he ran the panel that investigated the Iran-Contra scandal. (It became known as the Tower Commission.) After that, President George H.W. Bush nominated Tower for Defense secretary, but the Democrat-controlled Senate blocked him partly over character concerns about his womanizing and drinking. He died in a 1991 plane crash.

Tower held Lyndon Johnson's old Senate seat. He had served in the Navy, been solidly pro-Vietnam War and was the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee.

McCain and Tower became pals, probably an unprecedented relationship for a senator and a Navy liaison.

James Jones, a Marine who served under McCain during this period, told author Timberg: "He was very much loved by John Tower. I think that John McCain is the son that John Tower never had."

For his part, McCain remembered that Tower "loved good company, and that he thought me such is something I'm proud of."

"Tower knew my father well, and he knew of my grandfather," McCain wrote in his 2002 memoir. "He respected my service in Vietnam. He was also, of course, a loyal Navy man, and whenever he traveled abroad officially, he would request that I serve as his escort. I traveled quite a lot with him, perhaps on as many as twenty trips, all around the world."

McCain was not the typical Navy liaison. His Capitol Hill office became a popular afternoon hangout. His friendship with Tower was deep

 

About Lionel Sosa from Time

Growing up in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Mexican immigrants, Lionel Sosa was expected to learn a trade, defer to gringos and vote Democratic. But he was so impressed at age 13 by Dwight Eisenhower's version of the American Dream during a televised speech at the 1952 Republican Convention that he decided he wanted to be a rich businessman—and a Republican.

InTwo decades later, as a struggling ad-agency owner, Sosa helped U.S. Senator John Tower win his 1978 re-election bid with 37% of the Hispanic vote; no Republican in Texas had ever won more than 8%. Soon clients like Bacardi rum, Dr Pepper and Coors beer came seeking his advice on how to woo the Latino market, eventually turning Sosa & Associates into the largest Hispanic advertising agency in the U.S. At one point it was billing more than $100 million annually.

In 1980 Ronald Reagan reached out to Sosa, who created gauzy, feel-good ads that focused on the candidate rather than the issues, promising Latinos that Republicans shared their values of family, personal responsibility and hard work. "It's an insight Ronald Reagan gave me," says Sosa, who has worked on six presidential campaigns. "He told me Latinos are Republican. They just don't know it yet." With Sosa's help, George W. Bush snared an estimated 40% of Latino voters in 2004, a huge jump from Bob Dole's 21% in 1996. Semiretired, Sosa, 66, now spends most of his time painting and writing (his latest book, Think & Grow Rich: A Latino Choice, is due out next year), but if he gets the call in 2008, he'll be back on the stump.

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