Tag Archives: election

An Aware Clinton and the New Demography 40 Years Later

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Posted Wednesday evening for Sept. 6, 2012.

It was Bill Clinton who was the first President to put into words something already afoot: The remaking of America.  In the days after he won election in 1992, Clinton said he wanted a Cabinet that reflected America.  He proceeded then to assemble a Cabinet that included two HispanicLatinos, San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Denver Mayor Federico Peña as Secretary of Transportation.

Clinton – the most capable and aware President since Lyndon Johnson – understood what few Americans did, that the country had begun a historic demographic shift already changing the country.  Sometime in 1972 or therabouts, twenty years before Clinton organized a more demographically correct Cabinet, the population replacement rate of the “white” population had already dipped below the necessary 2.1 births per woman and it has fallen each year since to probably 1.7 today.  Such a decline in demographic terms creates a void and triggers an extremely powerful force for change, with the potential to cause countries to disappear — a very high price for a nation to pay.  But stepping into that breach a growing HispanicLatino population already was leading the formation of a new demography critical for the nation’s survival.

Coming full circle 20 years after he was first elected, Clinton addressed a Democratic national convention last night that reflected the new America that its new demography has created. Benita Veliz, the undocumented student who addressed the convention, represents a vital part of the new demography America needs and requires.  Veliz introduced another immigrant from an earlier generation of HispanicLatinos, Cristina Saralegui, a Cuban American long a fixture on Spanish-language television at Univision and now Telemundo.  Saralegui debunks the notion that all Cubans are Republicans.  Saralegui delivered a full-throated personal endorsement of Obama that spoke about the future of the America that Clinton understood was changing long before most decision-makers.

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Say it isn’t so, Rupert: Romney Going Negative on HispanicLatinos

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Regular readers of this blog know that some weeks ago I wrote that the Romney campaign might have decided tactically to give up on the HispanicLatino vote.  Nothing otherwise explains Romney’s lame performance at the NALEO conference in Orlando three weeks ago. I suggested that Romney might now allow his friends at the SuperPacs to run an anti-HispanicLatino strategy in selected states to whip up working class whites a la Willie Horton to make up for any lost share in traditional GOP HispanicLatino support.

A story in The Washington Post about a tweet by Rupert Murdoch supports my suspicion.  “Murdoch was among 50 people who met with the former Massachusetts governor at the Union League Club in New York City (last week)….At the meeting, Murdoch pressed Romney and his aides to get tougher on Obama and asked about Romney’s stance on immigration. He later tweeted his thoughts in response to a follower who said Romney has brains but needs more stomach and heart…(Murdoch tweeted): ‘Romney has all these and more, but just to see more fight. And Hispanics a surrender to O. Cn not afford, hurts senate too.’”

Murdoch’s disjointed, contorted tweet implies that he walked away from the meeting with the impression that Romney has surrendered HispanicLatinos to President Obama, something Murdoch feels Romney cannot afford to do.  But trailing 68-24 percent among HispanicLatinos in the polls, Romney might feel he has no option but to revert to a strategy that attracts voters scared and anxious about the economy and the nation’s new demography.

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Intensity after Court decision is not one-sided

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I am often struck by the conventional wisdom that sprouts instantly on television after, say, a Supreme Court decision on health care.  Conventional thinking is like angel dust to reporters who in the immediacy of an event have to say something that by the end of the day is repeated often enough during the 24/7 news cycle that it becomes fact.

So it is with the “intensity argument” that is supposed to give the Republican campaign of Mitt Romney a much-needed boost in the arm.  Trailing in every state that is supposed to be competitive in a supposedly close election, Romney, it is thought by the conventionalists, received an injection of energy sure to change the dynamics of the campaign.  I am not convinced.  I doubt more can be done to increase the anger-level of the virulent anti-Obama camp.  In contrast and perhaps as important is the fact that three million young Americans up the age of 26 can stay on their parents’ insurance policies.  Add to that perhaps as many as five million grateful, anxious parents and anyone can begin to see that the intensity argument does not flow in one direction only.

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The Unintended Paradox of Arizona

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Nothing defines an individual more than a different identity being thrust upon him or her. It is more important than just one moment, and it in the long run might be pivotal for the country.  It might convert a leaderless community into one of action — for America’s good.. 

The massive attention given to the Supreme Court decision on Arizona represents only a part of our passage into the new time we are privileged to witness, although many of us will have to adjust our vision to it, as if entering a room suddenly lit.  The intense speculation over the HispanicLatino vote in the presidential race is but another component of the point of no return.  Things HispanicLatino have become and will forever be, with growing strength, a part of the national consciousness.  The Dream Act.  The penetration of the HispanicLatino image into mainstream advertising.  The changing demography.  Unending elections and perennial electoral calculations.  All are real departure points rooted in change but now intensified by the necessity of HispanicLatinos to prove their citizenship by showing their papers until the last remaining part of Arizona is declared unconstitutional. 

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Court on Arizona: Maintains and raises race as central theme of nation’s future

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The essence of the American experience throughout its history has been race.  From the country’s very beginning when the founders sidestepped slavery, through the Civil War and through the civil rights movement, racial identity – and the meaning of Americanhood – has been a focal point in the events of our time.  The Supreme Court’s affirmative decision on Arizona’s anti-HispanicLatino law maintains – and in fact raises – race as a central theme of the nation’s destiny.  Not only can any HispanicLatino be stopped by local enforcement officials but also blacks, Asian Americans and any dark-skinned person thought to be from anywhere else.  In that sense, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer was correct in claiming that the “heart” of her state’s racist law that permits racial profiling was confirmed. 

But Brewer also said that local enforcement authorities will be held “accountable” if they engage in racial profiling.  From my days covering police departments as a reporter years ago and then later when I worked as a speechwriter for the commissioner of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service, I know the power and discretion that local officers have.  And some, no doubt, will go overboard.  And therein Brewer has no idea how accountable local governments will be held, for the moment that any citizen or any other person in the country legally has his or her rights violated by overzealous officers, they must sue the local governments that officer represents. 

Only a cascade of lawsuits that will hurt local governments financially can push back the wave of discrimination that will soon be visited upon unsuspecting HispanicLatinos and other individuals of color.  County and city and school districts that engage in any kind of discrimination must be taken into account – immediately.  HispanicLatino attorneys must be the first line of attack on the Court’s tragic decision.  In the smaller towns and cities and marginal localities in which HispanicLatinos are at the most risk, properly timed lawsuits against these local governments can bankrupt many of them. The Court left open the possibility that the most odious part of the decision could be challenged almost immediately.  Let those legal assaults begin in earnest on all fronts.  HispanicLatino attorneys literally must invade local courthouses with lawsuits.  Local and state governments should pause before moving forward on ill-fated, ill-advised efforts that will prove counterproductive in the end.

A pivotal implication of the Court’s decision, then, is the slow movement of history pushing HispanicLatinos to the lead of the civil rights struggles of the future through the legal system.  The Court put in high relief the lead role that HispanicLatinos – the principal force changing the country’s demographics – are going to play in its future.

In more ways than most people can appreciate, this is a pivotal moment in the nation’s history.  The Court did nothing to advance the notion that the nation one day will get over the question of the color of one’s skin.  And in deciding infamously on Bush v. Gore, women’s wages, campaign finance reform and, probably, health care and, certainly, on Arizona, the Court is on the wrong side of history.  HispanicLatinos can advance their history-altering responsibilities by making sure that the Court – its decisions and its composition – become an election-year issue.

If HispanicLatinos in fact are destined to change the country, let them start by remaking the Court by helping re-elect a President who might yet have the opportunity to appoint another justice or two.

Marco Rubio: Laugh or Cry?

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I am one of those HispanicLatinos who wants to like Marco Rubio.  Anyone who knows and understands how fast HispanicLatinos need to rise within high leadership circles to affect the challenges the country faces should cut a wide swath around individuals like Rubio, especially those gifted with the kind of presence, charm and personality that some people equate to that possessed by John F. Kennedy.  In today’s media-driven world, Rubio possesses all the traits that lead to success.

Except that Rubio is so wrong on so many fronts.

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Romney Lets Golden Moment Pass

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I do not know what President Obama is going to say today in Orlando at the annual convention of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials.  I did hear Mitt Romney yesterday and to say that it fell short of what he needed to do is an understatement.  By my timing, Romney spoke for 16 minutes.  In the 20 or so GOP debates during the presidential primary campaign, I estimate that Romney spent at least five minutes, on average, bashing immigrants and, by extension, HispanicLatinos who, while not making immigration their number one priority, do not cotton to that kind of language.  Romney’s antagonistic language in the last few months amounted to perhaps as many as 100 televised minutes – not to mention the endless repetition of his remarks as sounds bites across every medium in the country.  It isn’t as if HispanicLatinos do not know where Romney stands on things HispanicLatino.  And so 16 minutes hardly would suffice. 

But Romney amazed me:  The national Spanish-language networks, both television and radio, waited for him with genuine interest.  Univision and Telemundo were there, but also were the mainstream media, from which most HispanicLatinos get their news.  CNN and MSNBC carried the address live.  This was not a “gotcha” moment.  He had control of the entire environment.  It was a golden moment for Romney but, like the alleged vetting of Marco Rubio for vice president, Romney flubbed his opportunity.  Perhaps he expects Jeb Bush or Rubio to do what he could not do for himself.  Yet it does not work that way. Folks do not vote for surrogates. He could have achieved 100 percent coverage of the HispanicLatino community to make up for 100 minutes of discord.

If the Romney campaign hoped for some phrase, some language, some image, some narrative to register and make it across the many media gathered there that could begin to turn around the presidential race, the speech it prepared for its candidate was wholly and surprisingly absent of anything substantive.  Who gets this kind of tee-up and whiffs it? 

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Wisconsin last night compounded the value of the HispanicLatino vote for November

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The election results in Wisconsin last night raise more than an eyebrow.  They carry real implications.  The one consequence not being discussed in the post-election analyses on the television sets is the ever-ballooning importance of the HispanicLatino vote.  Take the electoral votes of Wisconsin and perhaps other near-by states out of the equation for November, and it makes Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Florida all the more critical.  As each day passes, the HispanicLatino vote gains greater political currency, and the resources dedicated to it should increase accordingly.  States that are deemed safe today might not be tomorrow, and so whatever additional insurance can be purchased by the campaigns, its cost should not daunt campaign strategists.

The facility with which Gov. Scott Walker swept aside the attempt to recall him also gives rise to the need to review the infrastructure that President Obama’s campaign is building to win in November.  However important labor unions, they can provide only one component of the votes Democrats need.

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Marco Rubio, the 33-percent Solution and The New York Times

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Years ago, a city editor in the newsroom taped a piece of paper on the monitor on my desk with the proper spelling of the city’s mayor.  I consistently misspelled it.  The New York Times should do the electronic equivalent for whichever of its writers report on the HispanicLatino vote this year.

Individuals across the land who put out a daily newspaper 365 times a year make as many mistakes.  One of those 365 mistakes is when a newspaper gets wrong the share of the HispanicLatino vote that George W. Bush received in 2004.  It was not, as the Times said in a story last week, 44 percent but 40 percent. Aside from the editorial integrity involved, the difference is of interest in this year’s election.

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Anti-HispanicLatino Rhetoric – a Small Silver Lining

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So it is true that anti-HispanicLatino rhetoric continues unchecked, driven by the prolonged Republican presidential primary campaign, fed by the fights in places like Alabama, Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina over mostly unconstitutional state laws on immigration and festooned by the antics of the hate-filled Joe Arpaio.  And the tone of the attacks that like shrapnel explode in every part of the HispanicLatino community might get shriller still.  However, a sliver lining adorns every cloud.

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