voiceofsandiego.org: Opinion... Year of the Latino

Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2008 |There are not likely to be any huge surprises in November -- no hanging chads, no landslides, no Truman upsets. The two presidential candidates are close in the polls, meaning we could have again, as in 2000 and nearly again in 2004, a minority president, but given our electoral system and political polarization, that would be no surprise.

This election, like the past two, will come down to a handful of states. What will make it unique is the Latino vote, ready to explode. Because of the rapidly growing Latino population -- Latinos account for half the U.S. population growth this century -- we've thought Latinos would make the difference in previous elections, but it didn't happen. Here's why:

According to U.S. Census data, only 17 percent of all Latinos voted in 2004, compared with 51 percent of all whites and 39 percent of all blacks. True, a higher percentage of Latinos was either under 18 or not U.S. citizens, but, in addition, a lower percentage of eligible Latino voters turned out. Only 47 percent of eligible Latinos voted in 2004, compared with 60 percent of blacks and 67 percent of whites.

Latinos have been largely self-disenfranchised in recent elections. Too many haven't registered to vote, and, if registered, haven't voted.

Only 7.5 million Latinos voted in the 2004 election (out of a total population of 46 million), but as low as their vote has been, it's been rising, and Latino organizations promise a spectacular increase this year. Between the presidential elections of 1988 and 2004, the Latino vote doubled. The goal this year is to increase it by nearly 50 percent over 2004 -- to 10 million voters.

If delivered, the significance of the increase will not be in total votes, but where they are cast. Latinos make up a large bloc of voters in four key states that George W. Bush carried by fewer than 5 percentage points in 2004. They comprise 37 percent of the eligible electorate in New Mexico, 14 percent in Florida, 12 percent in Colorado and 12 percent in Nevada.

In 2004, Bush won 40 percent of the Latino vote, a five percent increase from 2000. He did better among Latino voters than previous Republican candidates (Bob Dole won 22 percent in 1996), largely because he won nearly half the Latino vote in his home state of Texas, home to 19 percent of the nation's Latinos.

Republican candidate John McCain, of Arizona, won't have the Texas advantage, and the latest polls show McCain trailing Barack Obama among Latino voters by a crushing 66 to 23 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. By 41 to 14 percent Latinos say Democrats are doing a better job of dealing with illegal immigration, and by 44 to 8 percent Latinos say Democrats are the party with more concern for Latinos.

The polls have been influenced by the Bush administration's new high-profile crackdown on illegal immigrants, featured nightly on Spanish-language news. The symbol of Bush policy is the recent raid in little Postville, Iowa. A battalion of helicopter-borne ICE officers attacked a Postville slaughterhouse as if it were an al Qaeda base in Afghanistan. Instead of the usual procedure of detaining, processing and deporting illegal workers, some 300 meatpackers, including children, working in appalling conditions, were tried in ad hoc courts and sentenced to five months in prison prior to deportation.

Bush has made Postville into a political issue, and McCain must deal with it. To whatever extent such raids may help McCain among Pat Buchanan nativists, they will not help him with those 10 million Latino voters, as appalled by Postville as the rest of us.

Illegal immigrants are not criminals. To treat them as terrorists, deny them acceptable legal representation, ignore that they have families here to support, and “disappear” them into prisons around the country is not how this nation historically deals with immigration. The Postville workers shouldn't have been here and shouldn't have been employed, and if this nation had a proper identity-card enforcement system in place, they wouldn't have been here.

But 12 million of them are here, and you can do the math to figure out how many Postville raids it will take to arrest them all.

Along with Sen. Ted Kennedy, McCain was the author of a 2005 comprehensive immigration bill that would have addressed the issue of those 12 million undocumented immigrants. And, yes, that bill included a foolproof identity card system to enable employers to verify legal status. But since his nomination, McCain has abandoned all talk of what he once called a "comprehensive and humane" way of dealing with illegal immigrants. He now says he wouldn't support his own bill.

Both Obama and McCain showed up in Albuquerque last month to address an umbrella meeting of national Latino organizations. Obama was the only one of the two candidates to speak of finding ways to bring those 12 million people -- symbolized by the people of Postville -- "out of the shadows." McCain now speaks only of criminals and drug-traffickers among the 12 million.

The polarization of American politics, combined with a system that does not elect presidents by popular vote, means that a handful of states now determine who wins the White House. If Latinos have been underrepresented in the past, this looks like the year, thanks to their presence in swing states and the absurdity of Bush-McCain immigration policy, that they might pull more than just their weight.

James O. Goldsborough has written on foreign affairs for four decades, both from the United States and abroad, where he worked as a foreign correspondent for The New York Herald Tribune, International Herald Tribune and Newsweek magazine for 14 years, reporting from more than 40 countries. Visit his website here. Submit a letter to the editor here.

No surprise that you fail to include the minority presidencies of 1992 and 1996 - gosh, I wonder why that would be? Your paternalistic bigotry causes you to believe you can predict what Latinos will do as voters. They are not a solid block any more than whites are, because too many of them have tasted the success and opportunity America has to offer - and realize that the democrats and Obama do not support or encourage their tasting more of it. They also will not agree with you that McCain and Bush are the same on immigration - you saying won't make it so. Finally, any individual who has entered this country illegally has violated a federal law, and by definition is a criminal - perhaps not a "common criminal", but a criminal. And most legal Hispanics do not support their illegal entry. No Iraq this time? You okay?

Posted by Algernon Sidney | reply to this comment
August 13, 2008 7:17 pm

While no sane person approves tactics that are right out of Nazi Germany like the raid described, your support for a national ID card is a non-starter. If sane people have no love for the kinds of authoritarian tactics los illegals caught at Postville, why shoud any American be forced to carry something that some uniformed, tax-supported thug can demand without probable cause? If we're saddled with these things, I, for one, will refuse to carry a card and won't present it on demand and will sue the hell out of any agency that tries to force me to do so. Neither dems or reps care a fig about freedom--the American kind--so it will have to be up to us to maintain it. You could help here instead of encourage the wrong kind of things to come.

Posted by Fred | reply to this comment
August 13, 2008 7:49 pm

Why would any Latino possibly vote for McCain? Enough with the GOP co-opting "family values." Since when is it a family value to create wars for oil (Iraq) or deny working-class people the right to education and health care? For that matter, is it a "family value" to remove the estate tax on the wealthiest 1% of America while underfunding programs for the middle and working class? LATINOS FOR OBAMA: link

Posted by Josue | reply to this comment
August 14, 2008 8:22 am

Colorado should be on the radar of anyone who might be looking to see how the Latino vote will play out this election year. 5280, Denver's magazine for the past 15 years, has a nice package of articles online this month that interested Latino vote/politics watchers will want to check out. Colorado Senator Ken Salazar is raising the profile of Latinos across the state and the nation: link Colorado's most influential Latinos are briefly profiled as well: link Finally, the national immigration debate is playing out in Greeley, Colorado, which was netted in the Swift Meatpacking raids of December 2006: link

Posted by vanessa | reply to this comment
August 14, 2008 12:31 pm

Why would any sane Latino vote for Obama? Having worker for three decades in private and public institutions, and having seen and experienced how many Latinos are usually left behind in all type of promotions that were given to African Americans who did about half of the work we did, voting for Obama as a Latino is just stupid! All upper, middle management jobs are going to be awarded to Blacks by the Liberal whites, and in the Federal Bureocracy, Latinos may as well kiss adios to any gains made in the last twenty years! I prefer to vote for the McCain who has demonstrated caring about fixing immigration law, and not by a candidate who says, and may do anything just for political gain and calculation.

Posted by D Quint | reply to this comment
August 14, 2008 1:38 pm

It's Simple. We all vote McCain 2008 and live happily ever after. You won't like what the Demon-crats have in store for us. Just listen to Pelosi. If you can understand what she is saying, you are in trouble.

Posted by MadCat | reply to this comment
August 14, 2008 10:48 pm

Voted to keep Democrats from being included those first six years while they had “all the toys,” voted some 98% of the time supporting the President's 'pro-big-oil' agenda? The person who voted to attack, invade, and occupy Iraq – a country that has nothing to do with the 911 attacks? The person who knows from personal experience that, when tortured, a prisoner will say and do just about anything he thinks his torturers want him to say or do - in order to stop the pain and terror – flip-flopped and ended-up supporting our own torture of people being held by us and/or our agents around the world? The man how stood idly by as taxes were cut to the wealthiest 10% of our nation - taking our federal government instantly into a $300 billion deficit spending condition, then claimed to not support radical deficit spending? Who's this guy?

Posted by Gregory | reply to this comment
September 26, 2008 8:27 am

Illegal immigrants are not criminals? So, are you condoning violation of the immigration law and modern day slavery. I am crying for the law breakers. Jobs that paid 19$ an hour, now pay 10$ because these are jobs americans wont do. Get a clue.

Posted by wwb | reply to this comment
August 16, 2008 10:23 am

ICE did not "attack" anything or anyone, nor did any children get arrested, tried, and sentenced to 5 months in the federal pen. Are Goldy's essays not subject to fact-checking at VofSD? Seriously, outright lies are acceptable at the VofSD as long as they're under the guise of "Opinion"? As for hispanic voters...sort of an oxymoron isn't it? They don't vote. Those that do vote are not going to vote democrat because Immigration is rounding up the criminal alien. As another poster correctly stated, the legal immigrant isn't typically sympathetic to the illegal immigrant.

Posted by D | reply to this comment
August 28, 2008 9:29 am

There are so many things misleading in what is written above. However, it is very typical of Republican controlled Scam Diego. “They don't vote.” A broad stroke generalization; by using “They” you mean ‘those people’? I believe you will find that Latinos make-up some 1/4 of the voters in California. “Those that do vote are not going to vote democrat because Immigration is rounding up the criminal alien.” Exactly how could anyone come to that conclusion when locally it is the Republicans how have complete control over our governmental structures (Republican Police Chief, DA, and Sheriff) which acts to suppport ICE's efforts, arms themselves paraiding along our boards, protest at Latino Conferences and at City Council meetings when our city denotes Latino events, and nationally the Republicans totally controlled all three branches of government when operation ‘Return to sender’ was activated.

Posted by iknowtodd | reply to this comment
August 28, 2008 11:07 am

By "They", I meant Hispanics. It was pretty clear. Nice try resorting to the hysterical democratic play-book and pathetically trying to use the race card. Most of the rest of your post is muddled nonsense. Hispanics don't nearly account for a quarter of California voters. Do you get your pretend facts from Goldy?

Posted by D | reply to this comment
August 29, 2008 8:58 am

Oh, its clear alright. You mean all 'Hispanics" (whatever that means) think and act exactly alike. Yep - that is representative of the people who have taken over my once great Republican Party. I guess if you consider and real Conservative Christian a Democratic - then so is it. I will switch as soon as I can, buddy. It is clear that our Republican party not only created the largest and most indebted national (and state) government in the history of the United States (and California,) but our party also put into place “operation Wetback II” a very derogatory and demeaning name and anti-Christian action to be sure. Here is some reality to help you get out of your dream world. link link link link link link

Posted by Iknowtodd | reply to this comment
August 29, 2008 11:13 am

Year of the Latino? There is so much racism and hate of the Latino in our governmental structure even a Latino Vets are subjected to it! "This all started when I sent them (the U.S. State Department) my passport and they sent me a letter saying that it wasn't sufficient. So, I sent them all kinds of documents -a baptismal certificate, military records, and pictures of me in the pre-kindergarten, a copy of my grandmother’s birth certificate that showed that she was an American citizen, “he said, adding,” and that still wasn't enough. I knew something was wrong when they even started asking me for things like Census documents from the 1930's that don't even exist." link The Latinos, decedents of our Indigenous peoples and the first permanent European settlers, but not ‘Real Americans’ in the eyes of our own Government?

Posted by Iknowtodd | reply to this comment
September 26, 2008 7:37 am

Year of the Latino

By James O. Goldsborough