Many political observers are convinced that this year will be a big one for elected officials of a conservative ideological bent, as they want to believe we’re all rebelling against the goals of President Barack Obama.
But I can’t help but wonder if the growing Latino population and our potential for votes is going to be the factor that throws a wrench in the dreams of our nation’s conservative ideologues.
IT’S GOING TO be roughly four more decades before Latinos account for one-third of the nation’s population (or so says the Census Bureau). But the fact is that each recent election cycle has managed to set new records for the number of Latinos who cast ballots.
Considering that the one trend against strong Latino electoral clout now is the youthful age of the population – significant numbers remain under 18 years of age, which means they can’t yet vote – also is a trend that will decline with years, the fact is that the Latino vote is going to be one that cannot be overlooked.
And what is happening now is that the Latino vote is going through a period where we’re establishing the trends that likely will determine for decades to come how the bulk of our numbers will vote on candidates and issues.
There are those Latinos who during the years of George W. Bush briefly flirted with the Republican Party, before realizing that the bulk of the GOP loyalists were upset that “their” president (who was mentally a Texan first and foremost) would bother to think about Latinos as people.
IT HAS BEEN that hostility that has driven many Latinos to think about the Democratic Party and its candidates – as evidenced by the two-thirds of Latinos who in 2008 voted for Barack Obama for president.
There are Republican observers now who think that Latinos will be turned off by Obama and will punish Democrats by backing the candidates of the GOP. That is just too wild of a pipe dream to ever become reality.
The problem with that logic is that it would be seen by many Latinos as rewarding the people who are causing many of the political problems we face.
It is the reason why I am curious to see how the whole political battle over immigration reform plays out this year in Congress.
IT WAS ALWAYS a given that the bill now sponsored by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., was a longshot to be approved, while a measure being crafted by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., that might get consideration was more likely to have conciliatory measures toward conservative politicos.
Latinos take an interest in the immigration reform battle even if they personally already have achieved U.S. citizenship because we realize that the perception people have of the issue is intertwined with the way some people perceive our growing share of the U.S. population.
We see that some people either can’t, or don’t want to, tell the difference between someone who is an immigrant and someone who is merely ethnic.
If we get the sense that immigration reform is failing to go anywhere because of the apathy of Democratic leaders (some advisers to Obama wish that the issue would go away for a few years because they’d rather not expend the political capital necessary to actually “win” the fight, then there is the very good chance that future Latino turnouts could go against Democrats.
BUT IF WE get the sense that Obama (who has said he will push for some action on the issue this year) is being thwarted, then it will be considered yet another reason why the GOP is making many of us “Democrats by Default.”
I realize there is significant opposition in this country to the goals of those people who prefer the label “progressive” to liberal (but who the ideologues are determined to portray as “socialist” – even though I suspect most of them wouldn’t have the slightest clue what a socialist is if they actually met one).
But for those people who want to believe that we are now at the beginning of a process that will see a return to “conservative values,” I’d have to wonder if the growing Latino vote is going to be the factor that ever prevents those people from being able to return the United States in spirit back to the mentality of the 19th Century.
So excuse me for being arrogant enough (or so it may seem to the nativists) to think that the growing Latino population, and our coming electoral clout, is going to be what keeps this nation moving forward. For that alone, we all ought to be thankful.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Even Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network has a sense of how significant the Latino vote (http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2010/January/Hispanic-Outreach-One-Key-Point-for-Obamas-Speech/) will be in future election cycles.
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