Of Mavi and Morcillas

Seeking votes to a salsa beat

The Puertorriquenos play politics in a style all their own, and soon they will stage their first presidential primaries ever (Feb. 17 for the Republicans, March 16 for the Democrats). TIME Miami Correspondent Richard Woodbury visited the island and filed this report:

VOTA CONNALLY PRESIDENTE read the white polo shirts of the welcomers who had turned out to greet their candidate at his hotel in San Juan. When John Connally arrived on the island the previous night he was wearing blue pinstripes, but this morning he appeared in an embroidered white cotton shirt called a guayabera. Waving and smiling in the blazing sunshine, the candidate bounded onto an orange sightseeing bus, and the seven-vehicle motorcade lurched off toward city hall. As the procession crept along the traffic-snarled Las Americas Expressway, the candidate began booming out "Buenos dias" from the open bus door to motorists and pedestrians along the way. Some waved and some yelled back, but a good many just stared, startled by this manifestation of that peculiar ritual, the American presidential campaign.

"This is our moment in the sun, our chance to feel vital," observes Julia Rivera de Vincenty, head of George Bush's campaign on the island. "We are starting to shed our second-class image." Agrees Mario Gaztambide, finance chairman for Howard Baker: "This should convince the people in Kansas that we're more than a winter playground."

Kansans aside, the primary is much involved with a uniquely Puerto Rican issue: statehood. Over nearly three dec ades of Commonwealth status, sentiment for making Puerto Rico the 51st state has grown steadily, and one recent poll put it at 55%. To boost that cause, the island's majority party, the New Progressive Party (P.N.P.), sponsored the 1977 legislation establishing the primaries, thus ending the custom of party leaders selecting convention delegates. "The primaries are a giant step toward promoting and achieving statehood," says Hernan Padilla, Republican Party executive vice president. "They take us into the direct political process."

The statehood question figures most prominently in the Democratic primary, in which 41 delegates are at stake. President Carter enjoys P.N.P. support and is favored, while Senator Edward Kennedy is backed by the Popular Democratic Party (P.D.P.), which wants to retain the island's Commonwealth status. Neither has campaigned here yet, and since the G.O.P. primary occurs in less than two weeks, the spotlight is now on the Republicans. Ronald Reagan dropped out in December, after failing to win the endorsement of Governor Carlos Romero Barcelo, who is staying neutral, but Howard Baker, Bush and Connally have all done some Latin politicking.

They have discovered that Puerto Ricans take their politics the old-fashioned way, urging the candidates to shake hands, gobble down morcillas (sausages) and twirl senoritas around the dance floor. "People want to see what the politicians look like close up," explains Connally Supporter Raymond Catala, a San Juan lawyer. "They want to touch them."

In a two-day swing last December,

Bush hit 17 towns and villages, a seven-piece band in tow. He moved easily from cockfight to cocktail party, toured factories and housing projects. When Baker visited a few days later, he kept an equally hectic schedule, visiting shopping centers, dedicating a clinic

and meeting with angry fishermen on the island of Vieques, which the Navy uses for bombing practice.

Connally, too, immersed himself quickly in the island ways. In the mountain towns of Coamo and Juana Diaz, he sipped Mavi, a tropical bark drink, and wolfed down alcapurrias (plantain stuffed with meat). As he rode down the main street of Ponce, whistles shrieked from atop the century-old red firehouse and a loudspeaker in a blue van barked to pedestrians: "El quiere saludarte. Dale tu mano." (He wants to say hello. Shake his hand.) They cheered wildly when he grabbed a microphone to yell, !"Estadidad ahora!"(statehood now). On the next day, he strolled down Calle del Cristo in San

Juan, stopping to pocket an eight ball in a game of billar and then scoring a quick victory in a game of dominoes.

Occasionally, the candidato turned awkward. After mounting a native paso fino horse in Caguas and finding himself atop an unfamiliar English saddle, Connally experienced a few nervous moments when the mare bounded down a rain-slicked brick street. In Coamo, he told a questioner that if Puerto Rico becomes a state, "you will first be an American, and second you will be a Puerto Rican." Anti-statehooders seized on the statement as proof that the island's cultural identity would disappear, but Connally later recovered, sort of. "You'll hardly know you have it [statehood]," he told a cocktail gathering, "except for a few more benefits."

Then there is the identity problem, which most candidates meet at one time or another. An elderly man in Juana Diaz cheered Connally lustily under the impression that he was Kennedy. Baker took no chances: as he made his rounds, a spotter moved ahead of him in the crowds to make sure that people shook the right hand. "El de los pantalones amarillos, "he repeated to onlookers (He's the one in the yellow pants).

The three Republicans are in a squeaker of a race, and the outcome may depend on which candidate best manages to bridge the cultural gap. So far, George Bush may be a little further along on that job than his rivals. His son Jeb, 26, speaks fluent Spanish, and for the past two weeks has made three or four appearances daily, always trying to keep his aptitude a secret until the last possible moment. "Amigos Puertorriquenos ..." he begins. Cheers erupt from the surprised crowds.

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