Will Latinos vote for a Black candidate?
“Will Latinos vote for a Black candidate?” is the meme making the rounds among Latinos in America. Gregory Rodriguez wrote about this topic in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, and Ruben Navarrette, Jr. weighs in today via the Washington Post syndicate.
Rodriguez: Clinton’s Latino spin:
If a Hillary Clinton campaign official told a reporter that white voters never support black candidates, would the media have swallowed the message whole? What if a campaign pollster began whispering that Jews don’t have an “affinity” for African American politicians? Would the pundits have accepted the premise unquestioningly?A few weeks ago, Sergio Bendixen, a Clinton pollster and Latino expert, publicly articulated what campaign officials appear to have been whispering for months. In an interview with Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker, Bendixen explained that “the Hispanic voter — and I want to say this very carefully — has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.”
The spin worked….
The spin also helped shape the analysis of the Jan. 19 Nevada caucus, in which Clinton won the support of Latino voters by a margin of better than 2 to 1. Forget the possibility that Nevada’s Latino voters may have actually preferred Clinton or, at the very least, had a fondness for her husband; pundits embraced the idea that Latino voters simply didn’t like the fact that her opponent was black.
But was Bendixen’s blanket statement true? Far from it, and the evidence is overwhelming enough to make you wonder why in the world the Clinton campaign would want to portray Latino voters as too unrelentingly racist to vote for Barack Obama.
Navarrette: A Campaign about Race:
We’re being told that Latinos won’t vote for Barack Obama because he’s black. The implication is that Latinos are racist….In 1968, Richard Nixon embraced a Southern strategy that used the race issue to carve up the electorate and scare up support from white voters. Republicans turned to the strategy time and again until the South was largely in their hands.
Well, with Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and California all holding primaries or caucuses next week, this could be the Clintons’ Southwestern strategy – an elaborate racial bank shot that is just as divisive and unsavory as its predecessor.
My on-the-ground opinion, living in a Black and Latino community, is that I haven’t heard anything about Latinos not wanting to vote for Obama because of race. But I’m not a political pollster, and besides - ahem - I don’t quite run in the circles that debate the merits of Obama over Clinton.
Both of these articles are helpful because they contain lots of data about past voting patterns, Blacks represeting heavily Latino districts, etc.
posted Jan 30, 2008, 8:41am by Rodolpho Carrasco
As the California primary approaches, I’ve been startled to herar some older Latinos voice their unwillingness to support a black candidate…either bc they find him ultimately, “unelectable”, or bc of a more deep seeded distrust.
As committed as some people are to being ‘race-blind’, I wonder if a compelling argument can be made for voting Obama over Clinton BECAUSE (and not irrespective of) his African American heritage. Is the move to a post-racial politic shortchange our understanding of our country’s racist history?
Rudy, who do you say….The Reagan’s Endorse? After watching the Debate from Reagan Library?
I’m not surprised that the Clintons are playing the race card in this campaign. Bill did it in both his campaigns. It’s sad. What I am surprised about is Obama’s ability to largely fend off the labels and run as a post-race candidate — ironically a position only a black candidate could claim with legitimacy in America. I believe this is good for democracy and good for the country.
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Thanks for that - it’s something I’ve been wondering about.