WHY MANY MEXICAN AMERICANS ARE FURIOUS OVER PERRY AD

When I called my friend and missed him, he returned the call and
missed me, but he left a message: "Sorry I missed you," he said. "But
being a Mexican American, I was out laundering drug money."

His joke articulated why many Latinos are seething over Gov. Rick
Perry's latest attack ad.

The election may be three months away, but the gubernatorial campaigns
are already doing things "and spending money" in ways normally
reserved for the final days of a very tight contest.

No one was surprised that Democrat Tony Sanchez started a TV ad
campaign days after former Attorney General Dan Morales' last-minute
filing. And considering his wealth, few were surprised when Sanchez
returned to TV only weeks after the primary.

His ads were needed to counter his opponents' superior name
recognition, the neophyte explained.

But his early "warm-fuzzy" spots gradually gave way to more pointed
ones aimed squarely at Perry, and as Sanchez familiarity increased,
apparently so did his viability.

Sanchez's ads hammered Perry with reminders that he wasn't elected
governor, and faulted him for Texas' troubled schools and for
accepting big contributions from energy and insurance interests.

Though polls released to the public showed Perry holding a comfortable
lead, he surprised many by running his own warm-fuzzy ads months
before many political pros thought necessary.

And then came the big surprise: Perry's "suitcases," an ad shot in
grainy black-and-white that features shadowy men loading suitcases
into a small aircraft and later sauntering into a bank vault, and a
mug shot of a disgraced former Panamanian president.

"Tony Sanchez's bank laundered $25 million in drug money," the
voice-over charges. "A federal judge confirmed Sanchez's bank wired
millions of laundered drug money to Manuel Noriega's Panama. The
Justice Department said Sanchez had a choice: to cooperate with law
enforcement or the drug dealers.

Sanchez chose the drug dealers." It's a powerful indictment, and the
Sanchez camp quickly countered that two federal courts absolved him
and his now-defunct savings and loan.

But just as this isn't your dad's Texas governor's campaign, neither
is it being covered by your dad's Texas press.

Senior U.S. District Judge Harry Lee Hudspeth, who is cited in the ad,
told San Antonio Express-News reporter W. Gardner Selby that his case
involved an El Paso bank, not Sanchez's Tesoro Savings and Loan, and
he didn't "remember Mr. Noriega coming up in the course of the trial.

"David Almaraz, the former federal prosecutor who handled the Tesoro
case, told Laredo Morning Times reporter Tricia Cortez that linking
the businessman to Noriega "would be laughable if it weren't so shameful."

And Tom Gonzales, the former IRS agent in the Tesoro case, told Cortez: "This
is a slam to Mexicans ... They did this because Sanchez has a Spanish last
name."

Valley Democrat Juan Maldonado said it most succinctly to the Brownsville
Herald's Steve Taylor: "Anytime a Mexican American is successful in business,
there are questions raised about how legitimate the business can be."

That's why many Texans see this ad as thinly veiled racist "code
talk," and believe that apologies are in order.