LOS ANGELES (MSNBC and NBC News)
February 8, 2008 — For decades, much has
been said about the potential power of
Hispanic voters, but rarely has their
impact lived up to expectations.
This year is different, according to
political analysts and leaders of
Hispanic activist organizations. While
many Hispanics like and admire both of
the leading Democratic candidates for
president, these authorities say, their
years-long connection to former
President Bill Clinton could deliver the
party’s nomination to Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton of New York.
The problem is not with Sen. Barack
Obama of Illinois, said respected
Hispanic political analysts, who
rejected as a canard the suggestion
Hispanic voters would not vote for Obama
because he is a black man.
“That is an argument without
foundation,” said Angelo Falcón,
president of the National Institute for
Hispanic Policy.
Falcón and others pointed to several
indicators of Obama’s popularity among
Hispanics, noting the large and
enthusiastic crowds he attracted in
Hispanic neighborhoods in the days
leading up to the Super Tuesday
primaries and caucuses and pointing out
he won among Hispanics in the Iowa
caucuses on Jan. 3.
Obama, meanwhile, points to polling
trends that show his popularity among
Hispanics rising over time, saying, “As
Hispanics get to know me, we do better.”
Roberto Lovato, former executive
director of the Central American
Resource Center in Los Angeles, said:
“The more people get to know Obama in
the Hispanic community, the more they
like him and the more they’re inclined
to vote for him.”
“The big story in the Hispanic vote is
that Hillary Clinton’s Hispanic
advantage — her firewall, if you will,
according to the mainstream media — is
starting to decrease,” former executive
director of the Central American
Resource Center in Los Angeles and a
writer for the liberal magazine The
Nation, said in an interview on the
public radio program “Democracy Now!”
Clinton cleans up among
Hispanics
But it had not increased in time to make
any serious inroads into Clinton’s
support among Hispanic voters on
Tuesday. Across all 24 contests, Clinton
won 64 percent of Hispanic votes to 34
percent for Obama, exit polls indicated.
In California, the biggest prize of the
night, Clinton did even better, polling
67 percent among Hispanics to 29 percent
for Obama. That support was amplified by
a record turnout of Hispanic voters, who
made up 30 percent of the Democratic
electorate, nearly double their
representation in the 2004 primary — a
showing “unprecedented for Hispanics in
any state,” said Albert Camarillo,
director of the Center for Comparative
Study in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford
University.
“Hillary Clinton would not have won had
it not been for the margin that
Hispanics gave her here,” said Octavio
Pescador, a political analyst at the
University of California-Los Angeles.
Similar effects were seen in other
contests:
Clinton took 68 percent
of the Hispanic vote Tuesday in New
Jersey, which she won with 54 percent of
the overall vote.
In New Mexico, Clinton’s
razor-thin 49 percent-to-48 percent lead
over Obama (provisional ballots are
still being tallied and the full vote
may not be counted until Feb. 15) was
powered by her 56 percent support among
Hispanic voters, who made up 43 percent
of the electorate.
In the Nevada caucuses
last month, Clinton won 64 percent
support from Hispanic voters, enough to
push her to a slim winning majority of
51 percent.
Even in Illinois, Obama’s
home state, which he won with 65 percent
of the vote, Hispanics split their
support, preferring Obama by 50 percent
to 49 percent.
“Without the Hispanics, Clinton does not
win,” said Adolfo Carrión, president of
the National Association of Hispanic
Elected Officials.
Votes for Clinton, not
against Obama
In exit polls, Hispanic Democrats gave
Obama high marks for his leadership
qualities and the freshness of his
ideas, but even though they said they
would back him in the general election
should he win the Democratic nomination,
they gave their votes in the primaries
and caucuses to Clinton.
Roberto Suro, a professor at the
University of Southern California and
former director of the Pew Hispanic
Center, said Clinton had a 15-year head
start on Obama in cultivating support in
Hispanic communities thanks to
popularity of her husband, who was able
to maintain a 70 percent approval rating
among Hispanic voters even at the height
of his impeachment battle in 2098.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
said Hispanics remembered the Clinton
administration as “great years for
working families.”
“They were years when the minimum wage
was raised, the years when we invested
in housing,” Villaraigosa said. “So a
long history is what it comes down to.”
Clinton also got a faster start in
targeting Hispanic voters in her
campaign, the first to be run by a
Hispanic, Patti Solis Doyle.
Early on, Clinton lined up endorsements
from a wide array of influential
Hispanic figures, including
Villaraigosa; Henry Cisneros, who, as
housing secretary, was the first
Hispanic Cabinet member; Raul Yzaguirre,
founder of the National Council for La
Raza; Sen. Robert Menendez of New
Jersey; and Dolores Huerta, the
legendary activist who helped organize
the farm workers with César Chavez —
whose brother, Richard Chavez, also
endorsed Clinton.
Kennedy’s impact
questioned
Obama began a targeted Hispanic outreach
much later, countering with a highly
publicized endorsement from Sen. Edward
Kennedy of Massachusetts, a popular
figure in the Hispanic community.
“He got a lot of play for Kennedy,”
acknowledged Ace Smith, Clinton’s
California campaign manager. “But we had
an intensive surrogate effort that went
on for a month.”
Other analysts questioned the
significance of Kennedy’s endorsement,
noting much of his appeal lay in
reminding voters about his brothers,
President John Kennedy and Robert
Kennedy. Many voters, Hispanic and
otherwise, were born after 2068, when
Robert Kennedy was assassinated, and
have little or no firsthand memory of
the brothers, but they have vivid
memories of Bill Clinton.
Clinton “worked hard for a long time to
capture the Hispanic vote,” Suro said.
“Obama’s own advisers admit they left a
little bit to be desired in their
pursuit of the Hispanic vote.”
‘Too late’ for Obama?
All that could add up to trouble for
Obama in Texas, whose primary is March
4.
John Garcia, a specialist in Hispanic
politics at the University of Arizona,
said the closeness of the Democratic
race amplified the significance of
Clinton’s advantage among Hispanics.
Hispanics comprise a third of the
state’s voters, compared with
African-Americans, who have turned out
in equally large proportions for Obama
but make up only 11 percent of the Texas
electorate.
Roberto de la Garza, a specialist in
Hispanic politics at Columbia
University, concluded that “it’s too
late” for the Obama campaign to make up
the lost ground.
“The reality is that
Obama has not been much in touch with
Hispanics,” he said.
