How Do You Get Latino Votes? (unexpected part 2)

And if you’re not in 1960…

Yesterday I posted a link to a video of a commercial Jackie Kennedy (wife of John F. Kennedy) did for her husband’s campaign–a commercial done completely in Spanish.  The 1960 election is the first national election where either of the two major parties made any organized effort to garner Latino votes.  While it would have been nice if the presidential candidate could have done such a commercial themselves, it was important, meaningful, and successful of JFK’s people to choose his wife.

And then today I saw/heard this.  It is one of John McCain’s Spanish-language radio ads, his most recent to date.  In it, an announcer now does the job of the former first-lady-to-be, promising McCain is the answer to these economic bad times.  “When we are filling up the gas tank, we are not Republicans, Democrats or Independents. We are Hispanics…”

How Do You Get Latino Votes?

Well, in 1960, you get your wife to use her choppy Spanish and promise a “mano firme” kind of leadership from her husband.

Check out this television ad made for the 1960 Presidential campaign, an election that pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard M. Nixon. Kennedy won by the smallest margin in history (up to that point)–less than 113,000 votes! Several hundreds of thousands of Latino voters registered and voted for the first time as part of what were called “Viva Kennedy” campaigns. So, from the perspective of many Southwestern electoral activists of the time, Mexican American voters (in particular) made the difference in electing the President of the United States.

Kennedy then proceeded to ignore many of the issues facing Latinos in the U.S. at the time.

Que Viva Kennedy!

5 Reasons Clinton is a Bad VP Pick for Obama

The seemingly “official” end to the exceedingly long Democratic Party nomination process (most of the candidates declared their intention to run before James Brown–who died on December 25, 2006–was buried!) feels too good to be true. And then, courageously, Hillary Clinton reminds us all: it is!

Yes, though Barack Obama went to sleep tonight knowing he had garnered more than the required 2,118 delegates to earn the Democratic Party nomination, he also had to think about the oddly narcissistic lack of any acknowledgment of that fact by Hillary Clinton. On top of that, while she is making “no decisions tonight” about her campaign, suggesting that she still needs to think about “how to move forward,” her supporters are also beginning to push on Obama to select her as his running mate. How’s that for having your cake and eating it too?

But Obama would be making a mistake in selecting Clinton as his running mate. Here are some the reasons why:

1. She’s a living, breathing suggestion he is not the “best” for the job.
For most of this calendar year, the Clinton campaign has been arguing she is the better candidate than Obama. Sure, you say, but that’s nothing new in a presidential race. It is when you consider the last three months. Though the math became increasingly improbable and impossible for Clinton to become the nominee, instead of dropping out the race gracefully, she reignited her charge, suggesting (as she does even today) that even though Obama has won more delegates, she is better poised to win the presidency. Despite math that would have lead any previous candidate in history to concede for the good of their party, she remained in the race as if to say it could not go forth without her. Selecting her as the VP would be tantamount to an admission of her campaign rhetoric, a repeated suggestion that he can’t win without her. Now, when he needs to leave this recent past behind him, her presence would be bringing it along for the long haul.

2. She weakens his strong point: CHANGE.
The Obama campaign has to be energized about the way they won this nomination. Their strategy on a district level showed they could plan; their mobilization of youth and first-time voters showed they could energize an electorate; and, most importantly, they never went negative. While Clinton was running commercials about 3 a.m. phone calls, Obama was keeping on message and embodying the kind of difference and change he said he stood for. The inclusion of Clinton on the ticket would be a break in the cult of authenticity he communicates. It weakens his support among these first-time voters who entered the race looking and believing in something new by suggesting their hopes will be eaten by the establishment.

3. She does little to strengthen his weak points.
Classic wisdom says a VP nominee should compensate for your weaknesses by delivering some key states for you. Clinton brings with her constituencies, but they are constituencies that are more than likely to go Democrat anyway. Obama’s weak points will not be with Latino voters, or the white working-class. They will be in key states where the smallest of margins might make an electoral difference. In all those states, many of which Clinton won against Obama, she can not add to the likelihood of Democratic success against McCain. The Clinton campaign can say it all they want, but she’s not going to deliver West Virginia.

4. She comes with Bill.
When Bill is attached to his wife as the President, his experience and history are assets. They have been seen as a team for decades now, and she has managed to remain a figure apart from her husband most of that time. She communicates as much independence and strength as he does any day of the week so his assumed presence is not a detractor to the public image of her as a leader. But when he is attached to her as a Vice President, you suddenly get the image of three cooks in the kitchen. Neither Bill nor Hillary are the kind of politician most Americans will buy in the second fiddle role. A Clinton VP would mean a loss of credibility to an Obama presidency.

5. It will, inevitably, be seen as coerced.
Finally, if Clinton becomes the VP pick of Obama, it will be seen as a negotiated settlement. With the public pressure mounting, and former staffers and supporters starting petition drives while their candidate remains silent on the matter, that analysis would be clearly on the mark. The problem is, the VP decision is among the most important decisions a candidate can make–not for what that pick brings but for what the decision says about the candidate as a leader. If this first of many important decisions is seen as a barter or a compromise, Obama will be a lame duck before he even enters the White House.

The “Border Beat” (June 4, 2008)

Well, all good things must come to an end.  Late May brings with it the end of another academic year for me, a chance to say goodbye and good luck to another set of graduating seniors as well as work my way out from under an avalanche of final papers.  Early June brings with it the end of my end-of-the-academic-year vacation, a chance to recuperate after a long academic year.  But the news never ends, now does it?

The “Border Beat” is back!

• It’s called “Operation Streamline” and its deporting you right now! (Washington Post)
• The Bush Administration is deporting Mexicans like its an election year and Chicanos are getting pissed off (Houston Chronicle)
• HispanicBusiness.com asks: “Can a fence be built without immigrants?”
• Juan Gonzalez wraps up the recent Puerto Rican Primary (Democracy Now!)
• Scholarly proof Lou Dobbs is a racist (Media Matters)
• Judge rules immigrant rental ban in Farmers Branch, TX is unconstitutional, but turns out they knew that already (Los Angeles Times)

Our final story for the day is sad reminder of the state of racial politics in the U.S., in particular those relating to Latinos.  Farmers Branch, a suburb of less than 30,000 people located in the greater Dallas metropolitan sphere of influence, and formerly known most prominently as the home of “Southfork” (the ranch owned by the Ewings clan of the 80’s nighttime soap opera Dallas), joined the world of xenophobic legislation in November 2006 with the passage of a municipal ordinance making it illegal to rent a dwelling to an “illegal immigrant.”  As they well knew at the time, such measures are (and have been repeatedly ruled) unconstitutional, since they violate the principles providing for the federal government (and only the federal government) to regulate immigration.  To put it simply, at the State or municipal level, there is no such thing as an “immigrant,” legal or otherwise.

But such harsh realities didn’t bother Farmers Branch, as they didn’t phase the scores of other cities across the U.S. who passed similar measures during 2006 and 2007.  You see, Farmers Branch doesn’t have to care about what’s legal if they can appease their community of (mostly white) residents who believe the government isn’t doing a thing to stop the invasion of Mexicans from across the border.  Yes!  Farmers Branch took a stand!  And tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and other costs, we end up right where we started.

The larger battle is a racially motivated one as well.  Farmers Branch–like other formerly all-white parts of the suburban Southwest–are increasingly becoming, well, not so all-white.  Over 30% of the residents of the city are Latino, a number which has been steadily increasing.  This isn’t a problem of “illegals” as much as it is a “problem” of internal changes in demography, both class and racial.  But to Farmers Branch, its just a bunch of brown folks ruining their precious, peaceful, and racially exclusive way of life.

The wise city fathers and mothers of Farmers Branch have now moved on from their xenophobia of the past.  Heck, they even repealed the old ordinance in question.  They’ve replaced it with a new piece of xenophobic legislation: a rule requiring all renters to provide “residential occupancy license” where they sign, under legal enforcement, that they are a “legal” citizen.  They city will then spend more of their time and money checking that with federal authorities.

We’ll see what the courts say about that…