The Atlantic - Latest Comments in About that Latino vote...

Re: About that Latino vote...

Thomas R — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:22:52 -0000

"I've been around Cubans, Panamanians, Dominicans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, etc. etc. I don't know how any one can plop all of these people into one group and claim they are the same." Betty Chambers

TR: "Hispanic" or "Latino" is kind-of a blanket term of convenience, but I'd agree it is somewhat misleading. The culture and politics are quite different. And the blanket-term at times confuses people on their status. I even remember someone, a published author on a very different group, complaining about "illegal immigrants from Puerto Rico" before someone told him why such a thing is impossible.

Although "Asian American" is kind of similar in being a blanket term. Korea is very different from the Philippines or India. I believe Vietnamese-Americans are a bit more Republican than other sub-groups while Chinese-Americans are fairly Democratic.

Re: About that Latino vote...

24AheadDotCom — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:57:23 -0000

Regrettably, Latinos acting like what they are--Americans---is teh dull.

Great thinking there, almost as good as MattY's. Many of those Hispanics who support BHO may be doing it due to factors that aren't really "American" as much as something out of the Balkans. The Dems have falsely tried to claim that a) opposition to illegal activity is anti-Latino, and b) McCain doesn't support illegal activity as much as BHO does. Meanwhile, there's a lot of things Coates is completely ignorant of, such as this speech where BHO sounded like a MEChA member.

Search for BHO's name at my site for much more, including him being proud of having marched at an event organized by possible proxies of a foreign government, including one representative of a foreign political party.

Re: About that Latino vote...

Roberto — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:23:00 -0000

Look, I'm black, and my parents are from Cape Verde, off the west coast of Africa. I grew up in Rhode Island which has a large Cape Verdean population, so that was fine.

It worked for Horace Silver so it's fine by me, too. (cue up "Cape Verdean Blues")

Re: About that Latino vote...

EngineerScotty — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:52:32 -0000

Of course lots of McCain voters are not racists.

And many are--though as many have noted, the economy is so bad that many racists are nonetheless planning to "vote for the n----r", as one rural Pennsylvania housewife famously told a pollster.

But the McCain campaign, like many GOP campaigns before, include a strong racial component--moreso this year because the Democratic candidate himself is black. It's bleeding obvious that the gambit being employed now is to paint Obama as radical, dangerous, and untrustworthy, so the glaring incompetence and erratic nature of McCain becomes the lesser of two evils. Race is a part of that.

Re: About that Latino vote...

Asher — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:36:11 -0000

On an unrelated note, this video shows (as much as any one video can show) that most McCain voters are not racists.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Defending_Islam_at_a_McCain_rally.html?showall

Re: About that Latino vote...

Betty Chambers — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:58:25 -0000

I've been around Cubans, Panamanians, Dominicans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, etc. etc. I don't know how any one can plop all of these people into one group and claim they are the same.

Although, for me, what they do have in common is their friendly, funny, and easy going nature.

With regards to the MSM, if there is racial conflict it must always pivot around black people.

Re: About that Latino vote...

spt.nyc — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:15:16 -0000

what andrew said.

a lot of discussions about "black,' "latino" and "asian" votes don't really consider the divisions within those communities.

Re: About that Latino vote...

CzdM — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:53:39 -0000

Moms (colombian) wants to NOT vote at all cuz Hillary was her girl, and Pops (Guatemalan) wants to vote for McCain. And it's not like they're republicans.

I'm beggin em to do otherwise, but who knows what they'll do November 4th.

You can't really front on old head latino racism. Particularly those that emmigrated into big cities/urban areas. They're often not embraced by the black community upon arrival, and they tend to remember that shit.

Re: About that Latino vote...

Andrew Fly — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:06:28 -0000

anonymous is right on

Look, I'm black, and my parents are from Cape Verde, off the west coast of Africa. I grew up in Rhode Island which has a large Cape Verdean population, so that was fine. But once I moved to Florida for high school, black people there wanted nothing to do with me. Nada. A girl asked me the first day of school "what are you?" I was like "huh", and girl was like "well, you ain't black."

Who did I hang with? The Latin cats. The girls gave me kisses on the cheek, and the dudes rocked Tims and listened to Wu. Now I live in Spanish Harlem and I get the same love.

Re: About that Latino vote...

res ipsa loquitur — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:48:48 -0000

I also remember all those Karl Rove/Ken Mehlman claims about Latinos being "natural Republicans" and blah blah blah blah blah.

Good luck with that, fellas.

Re: About that Latino vote...

Cynic — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:52:03 -0000

The problem, I think, is that our punditry is largely innumerate. To a great extent, the stories about Obama's struggles with particular demographics are farcical. They originated in the heat of the primary campaign, when the Democratic primary electorate (DPE) showed clear cleavages along demographic lines. Young people of all races and genders voted for Obama, but older, poorer, white, Hispanic, less-educated, and female voters tended to back Hillary. Those were real divides. It was very clear, during the primary, that within the DPE, Latinos preferred Hillary.

The problem was the conclusions that the punditry drew from these clear demographic facts: that Obama had a 'problem' with Latino and female voters, two traditionally Democratic constituencies. In fact, it was simple to show that this wasn't the case. Obama's negatives remained fairly low among both groups. Among Latinos, his positives were also low - they simply didn't know him, although they knew they could trust the Clintons. Among women, his positives were reasonably high. But both groups were evincing a preference for Clinton in a two-candidate race, not passing judgment on Obama per se. There was, simply put, never much reason to doubt that in the general election both groups would trend strongly to Obama. In fact, the evidence that Obama is now carrying both groups by substantial margins implies that his support among Democrats in both groups must be astronomically high, despite his failure to carry majorities of Democrats in these groups in the primary.

The other mistake that the punditry routinely makes is conflating relative and absolute performance. So we've seen innumerable stories about how Obama has trouble connecting with white working class voters, particularly men. The media is obsessed with this narrative, as if the central responsibility of the presidency is to deal with the problems of plumbers named Joe in Ohio, and not with those of the citizenry as a whole. (Underlining the absurdity of this story-line is the fact that these stories proliferated even as Obama amassed outsized margins in most tracking polls, and white males ceased to matter as swing voters. He's going to win this election whether or not he carries working-class white males. So why are we paying attention to what they think?) But the kicker is that Obama isn't doing badly among this group for a Democrat. It's just that his popularity among most other segments of the electorate is relatively strong for a Democrat, and so his having equalled or only modestly outperformed other Democrats among working class white males seems newsworthy. It's not. This is a group inimically hostile to Obama's agenda, generally suspicious of government programs, and skeptical of calls for transformation. It's also worth noting that the other candidate is, well, a white male. As I noted above, white women of a certain age overwhelmingly backed Hillary. That wasn't surprising. She spoke their language. They identified with her concerns. So when I see that white men are backing McCain 51-36%, or that his support among white males soars with age, I'm hardly surprised. Nor do I find therein evidence of a problem for Obama.

A final thought. The real story of division in this election isn't about race. In general, the racial breakdown is fairly close to what we've seen time after time, and has little to do with these particular candidates. No, what's interesting here is the generational struggle. The much-touted gender-gap has varied between 4-11% since 1980, in favor of Democrats. This year, tracking polls have placed it at or above the high end of that range (Diageo/Hotline, +11; R2K, +10, GWU/Battleground, +10). But that effect is less dramatic than age. The split between voters under 35 and those over 65 is the most dramatic departure in these year's polling from the results of previous cycles, and in every poll is a bigger divide than gender.

Why do I mention this? The Hispanic population is, on average, much younger (36 vs. 27). Pew's research found that 25% of Hispanic registered voters are under the age of 30, while just 24% are over the age of 55. And that accounts for at least a part of Obama's extraordinary performance among the Latino community this year - his support among voters under 30 is 73-16%, but drops among voters over 50 to a still-impressive 59-25%. This split is a stunning development. In 2000, voters under 30 were actually marginally more likely to support George W. Bush, exit polls found. By 2004, a gap had indeed emerged, but mostly because voters under 30 held roughly constant (around 30% for the GOP) while older voters flocked to the GOP in unprecedented numbers, giving it a 20% swing in just four years. So the switch among older voters back to Obama is the more dramatic shift, but it also represents a return to established patterns prior to 2004. The shift among younger voters, however, is titanic and unprecedented - they've gone from being consistently 2-1 in favor of Democrats to almost 5-1. The Republican party is losing the fastest-growing demographic subgroup in America, and losing them because Barack Obama appeals to young Hispanics, just as he appeals to young Americans of all races. That ought to be headline news; it will likely affect elections for a generation.

Re: About that Latino vote...

The Puzzled One — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:30:39 -0000

There is not a subtle joke but TNC's mockery of the hysterical chase-da-story-at-any-price mode on which media seem to operate. Today this, tomorrow that, string together a few stories to give the appearance of some trend there.

(Uh: Media is the plural of medium)

Re: About that Latino vote...

Rob — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 08:42:57 -0000

"White people hating black people is cool."

I'm hoping there is some subtle joke there I'm missing.

Re: About that Latino vote...

anonymous — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 08:18:01 -0000

"Latinos acting like what they are--Americans---is teh dull...."??

Naa -- it's the biggest story in the country: Ellis Island and all that, man.

Think about it, about the weekend's news: Colin Powell (through his cousin) famously observed that African-Americans whose families came here voluntarily, as immigrants, have a very different take on race than those descended directly from the Middle Passage. (That is, folks like Powell -- and Farrakhan, oddly enough -- had ancestors who were brought as captives to the Caribbean, but then chose to come to the US as immigrants, which is a very different family history even from the Northern Migration folks who moved within the US, having been brought directly here against their will.)

And of course Obama is an African-American, but in a very different way: he is not a descendant of the Middle Passage.

So much of what we talk about as race in the US isn't, strictly speaking, race as such, but the legacy of slavery -- a racist institution in the US, to be sure, but distinct from race itself.

That's where the power of immigration comes in, the way "they" become "us" and who "We, the People" are changes and expands to include people.

Mike Barone argued that Asian-Americans are assimilating like European Jews of a century ago (within a generation), while Latinos are assimilating like Italians (his own ancestry, over three generations): so what about the dynamic you're describing as race?

Powell is right to use the word "transformational" for Obama's potential, don't ya think?