The Latino-Obama connection: Shattering the myth
By
Max J. Castro Read Spanish Version
majcastro@gmail.com
Where
are they now, the naysayers, some of them Latinos, who whispered —
or in some cases shouted — that Hispanics would never vote for an
African American presidential candidate?
They
underestimated the fairness and good sense of our people and the ease
with which Latinos could identify with Barack Obama, the mestizo
child — the son of an absent immigrant father and a white American
mother — who attained success through sheer hard work and talent.
More than anything, the doubters failed to see how clearly Latinos
saw through and were angered by the fierce Republican-led
anti-immigrant and anti-Latino crusade thinly disguised as a law and
order and border security effort. Finally, the economic meltdown,
which has occurred under a Republican president, and which has hurt
Latino workers especially, did not help the cause of the GOP standard
bearer.
With
the exception of African Americans, who voted almost unanimously for
the Democratic candidate, no major demographic group supported Obama
as strongly as did Latinos. This despite the fact that John McCain
had more appeal to Latino voters, because of his past record on
immigration, than any of the other Republicans who aspired to the
nomination.
At
the national level, Barack Obama trounced John McCain 69 to 31
percent. In some key swing states, such as Colorado and New Mexico,
the margin was significantly greater. But, even in Florida, where the
Latino electorate long has been dominated by conservative Cuban
Americans, Obama received 56 percent of the vote despite his promise
to adopt a more flexible policy toward Cuba. One can only imagine
what the margin would have been had the Republican presidential
candidate been an immigrant-basher such as Mitt Romney.
This
election shattered a multitude of myths, including: a) this country
is too racist to ever elect an African American to the presidency; b)
Latinos are too racist or too competitive with blacks to vote for an
African American; and c) you can’t win Florida, and especially the
Latino vote in that state, without pandering to Cuban American
hard-liners. Barack Obama struck a fatal blow to all those myths.
Only
few years ago, Karl Rove and his ilk of hard core Republicans foresaw
a permanent Republican right-wing domination of American politics.
Instead, we are now looking at the prospect of a permanent Republican
minority.
Demographic
trends, the political virtuosity of Obama, the disastrous reign of
George W. Bush, the anti-immigrant fervor of Republicans in the House
of Representatives and in the rank-and-file of the GOP, and the
economic meltdown are driving a stake through the heart of Rove’s
reactionary coalition that will be hard to stave off or avert.
Barack
Obama rode to victory on the
leading edge of a rising tide consisting
of young voters, minorities, and urban and highly educated whites. On
the other hand, McCain’s strongest supporters were white, older,
more rural, and less educated.
The
disastrous defeat of John McCain, a candidate more simpático
for Latinos than virtually any viable Republican presidential
candidate in 2012, spells special trouble for the Republican Party.
The party faces a difficult dilemma when it comes to the fastest
growing sector of the electorate.
Most
of the staunchest GOP supporters simply detest what they perceive as
“Latinization” of the United States; they are appalled at the
large and growing demographic, cultural, and linguistic footprint of
Latinos. It would be difficult for any candidate of the Republican
Party to win the nomination with a moderate or liberal stance toward
immigration. Even McCain — for all his conservative bona fides on
abortion and his war hero reputation — would have lost the
nomination had he not kowtowed to the large no-nothing contingent in
his party and recanted his previous support for his own comprehensive
bill which would have conferred legal status to millions of
undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom are Latino.
Much
has been made about the sole disappointment concerning the Latino
electorate in the 2008 election. Exit polls in California indicate
Latinos voted 53 to 47 percent in favor of Proposition 8, a state
constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. There is good reason
for the disappointment whenever those who have been discriminated
against support any form of discrimination. And there is little
comfort in the fact that African Americans voted massively in favor
of Proposition 8 — to the tune of 70 percent.
On
the other hand, a 53 to 47 percent vote is within the margin of
error. It would be accurate to say that the Latino community in
California was split down the middle on the issue in
spite of machismo, denial, the stance of the Catholic Church which
considers homosexual sex a mortal sin, and other predisposing
factors. Overall,
what is clear is that much educational work needs to be done in
minority communities to the effect that discrimination against one is
discrimination against all.
Latinos
are now in a position to make some demands of the new Obama
administration. These should include, among other things, a shift in
budgetary priorities toward domestic concerns, including universal
health care, improved public schools and — especially — jobs. The
new administration should end the war against the Latino and
immigrant community by Immigration and Custom Enforcement,
discontinue the construction of the wall on the southern border that
is impeding commerce, dividing families, and destroying the
environment.
Finally,
it would be a tremendous disappointment if an Obama administration
fails to appoint the most qualified person to head the Department of
State, who happens to be a Latino, namely New Mexico Governor Bill
Richardson. At the time of this writing, it was rumored that Senator
Obama had asked a less qualified candidate, New York Senator Hillary
Clinton, to serve as Secretary of State. On Cuba, Iraq, the
Israeli-Palestine struggle and the Middle East more generally, a
Hillary Clinton-inspired foreign policy would at best be a modest
improvement over Bush’s. Such a choice would be unfortunate and
might even mark the beginning of the end of the honeymoon between
Barack Obama and the progressive and Latino communities whose growing
political weight was so critical in propelling him to victory.
