Al’s Loupe

Build on momentum

By Alvaro F. Fernandez
alvaro@progresoweekly.com

Forty-eight percent of Cubans voted for Obama. That’s what one side is telling us. While another Miami pollster says it’s not true. He insists that his studies indicate that Romney picked up 59 percent of Cuban voters.

One happens to work for the Democrats and the other has a long history with Republicans. And I go back to my column last week that put the Cuban vote in Florida somewhere between 35 percent and 49 percent. And all indications tend to point to a number a bit higher than 40.

Anyway you cut it, it’s a continuing trend started in 2008, and it doesn’t fare well for republicans in the state. Add to that the fact that other Hispanic groups have been registering and on Nov. 6 flexed their considerable muscle in Florida, and the GOP must be bouncing off walls wondering what to do next with a growing segment of a population that for two consecutive elections has gone with the Democrats. Trends in polling, I’ve been informed, are sometimes more important than the immediate results.

No wonder republicans are worried.

Consider this: Before election day, when all indicators pointed to a Joe Garcia victory against David Rivera in Florida’s 26th congressional district, Republicans were already lining up candidates who could run against Garcia in 2014: The most prominent name, and the one cited as the most likely republican contender, was George P. Bush, son of former governor Jeb.

So the day after the Nov. 6 election, George P. Bush announced he would soon be seeking political office – in Texas, where he attended law school. Might he (and his family members) have seen the handwriting on the wall? I say this in spite of the fact that Jeb still happens to be one of the most popular politicians in Florida. And a person who every poll indicates would beat Marco Rubio, for example, among Hispanic voters in the state.

But back to the 48, or was it Romney’s 59? Surely it’s a promising trend within the Cuban-American voting community. One that might demonstrate several things:

• Nature is taking care of the elderly who still vote almost religiously for republicans, oftentimes against their own interests.
• Younger Cuban-Americans tend to be lining up more with Democratic Party values.
• New Cuban arrivals, now U.S. citizens, are finally registering and voting their interests – which leans more towards democrats. They also want to be assured that they can visit and help family members on the island.

Or was it simply that Obama’s message resonated more loudly than Romney’s among this group? Was the 47% comment by Romney insulting to persons in the Cuban community, who has never shied away from government handouts?

Only time will tell.

Lessons forward

I believe that this election and its results cannot be taken for granted. If we rest now, gains will surely be lost. A near future election with a Jeb Bush on the ballot, or even a Marco Rubio, might lean numbers towards republican.

So the plan should be one where U.S. citizens who arrived here from Cuba – especially after 1990 – need to register and then participate by voting. This will happen anyway over time. The only way to speed it up (and we must!) is by investing in projects that assure this is done sooner rather than later. Or need I remind you that there was good reason for the likes of David Rivera who wanted to alter the Cuban Adjustment Act and the wet foot/dry foot immigration policy to delay this segment’s participation during elections?

Also, we must NOT overlook Florida’s Latino vote. Or have we already forgotten that Latinos in the U.S. are being given a large part of the credit for the Obama victory. Florida was no different. Just check out the numbers in Florida’s I-4 corridor: the Orlando area went 58-40 Obama (Latinos registered increased 29% from 2008); Osceola went 61-37 Obama (Latinos registered increased by 35%); and the Tampa area went 52-46 Obama (with a Latino registration increase of 19%).

Latinos are the giant that finally roared. In two years, four years and every year beyond, those numbers will continue to grow.

"Every month, another 50,000 U.S.-born Hispanics turn 18 and become eligible to vote," said Ruben Navarrete Jr., a California-based pundit whose statement was deemed to be true by the website PolitiFact.

So I propose to the let the others worry about whether it was 40, 41 or 48 percent who voted for the President. The fact is that it was enough for Obama to win.

Our job should then be to not allow this momentum we carry to lose steam. And we must seek to coalesce with the giant I mentioned earlier.