Insulting, ignorant views of the influence of the Latino vote

Recently, I was in California doing an interview on a New York radio show talking about Texas. Also on the show was an African-American columnist from a newspaper in New York City. We were talking about the disparity in Latino support for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and the reasons for it. That's when I was treated to one of the most insulting and xenophobic explanations I've ever heard. It could be, the columnist said, that it's hard to appreciate Obama's eloquence "if English is your second language."

I nearly jumped out of my skin before jumping into the conversation. As someone who spent nearly five years at The Dallas Morning News, I pointed out that the Latino population in Texas includes people whose families have lived in the state for five generations. We can assume they picked up English along the way, I said.

Such boorish comments illustrate just how much ignorance there still is in the media about Latino voters, Latino issues, Latino anything. Recently, CNN's Bill Schneider explained Texas' "two-step" voting process by using the metaphor of a Mexican combination plate and quipped that both "give you heartburn." Give this a taste. It is not true that Obama can't get Latino votes or that Latinos won't vote for an African-American for president. Obama has already demonstrated that he can win Latino votes -- in his home state of Illinois, Colorado and Virginia.

Maybe because of Clinton's "kitchen sink" strategy where she went negative in the days just before the most recent round of primaries, the New York senator reversed Obama's inroads with Latino voters. In Texas, she won the Latino vote by more than a 2-1 margin.

That showing probably didn't surprise Adelfa Callejo, an 84-year-old Dallas-based lawyer and community activist I've known for several years and with whom I'm rarely in agreement. Callejo stirred up a hornet's nest with some excruciatingly honest but poorly worded comments about the division in that city between Latinos and African-Americans. The Clinton supporter told a television station that some Latinos might have trouble voting for Obama because of "hard feelings" owing to the fact that "when blacks had (power), they didn't do anything to support us."

Liberals freaked out, disturbed by the inference that there was discord somewhere over the rainbow.

But what some in the media and the activist world like to frame as Obama's difficulty in attracting Latinos, I prefer to think of as Clinton's knack for it. She has the Clinton brand and when it comes to politics, Latinos are brand loyal. She was also first into the market, setting up her organization in the Southwest. Meanwhile, Obama came late to the realization that Latinos would be important in this election.

They'll be even more important in the fall election, where -- if Democrats aren't careful -- they might lose many Latino voters to Republican John McCain. The Arizona senator has done exceptionally well with Latinos in his state. In his 1998 re-election, McCain earned 65 percent of the Latino vote. In 2004, it was more than 70 percent.

And that was before McCain joined with Sen. Ted Kennedy to introduce their immigration reform bill that would have offered a pathway to legalization for millions of illegal immigrants. That's another misconception -- that the only reason McCain is popular with Latinos is because he wants to open the borders. Nonsense. Most Latinos care as much about border security as any other group of Americans. But many of them cringe at those who demagogue the immigration issue, and they have also come to appreciate fairness and straight talk. And, if past voting is any indication, many of them seem to think they get both from McCain.

What do they get with Clinton or Obama? At the moment, chaos. The primary campaign is still turbulent thanks to those who pit some portions of the Democratic coalition against others. Chaos creates opportunity. In this case, the opportunity may be John McCain's.

© 2008, Washington Post Writers Group