Everybody’s going to spin meaning of Latino vote

Is it possible for us to have both a record-high number of Latino voters in the 2012 election cycle, AND a significant number of Latinos who don’t bother to vote?

It seems so. The National Association of Latino Elected Officials (the group that is cheesed-off with President Barack Obama because he’s not including an appearance at their weekend convention on his public schedule) issued their projections this week for the Latino voters.

OF THE ROUGHLY 50 million people who live in this country who are of the various ethnic backgrounds that comprise Latinos, almost half are both U.S. citizens AND old enough and eligible to register to vote.

The group figures 12.2 million Latinos will cast ballots in the ’12 election cycle. That would be a 25 percent boost from 2008 – the year that two-thirds of us chose Obama over Republican nominee John McCain, making us a factor in that election’s outcome.

But that also means, according to NALEO officials, that another 12 million Latinos who are eligible to vote are likely to decide it’s not worth their time or effort.

NALEO executive director Arturo Vargas says the emphasis among people interested in promoting Latino political empowerment ought to be, “to develop a culture of participation in which we vote every year.”

WHICH MEANS THAT the “success” of Obama in getting himself re-elected will be how he deals with those two issues.

I can already tell you that a majority of Latinos who cast ballots for U.S. president in the 2012 election cycle WILL vote for Obama over whichever individual manages to get the Republican presidential nomination.

What we don’t know is how many Latinos will be so disgusted with the Republican hostility and Obama apathy toward our concerns that they just decide that neither candidate is worth their vote.

A significant refusal to vote is what will cause damage for Latinos – which is only rightfully so. I have always said that refusing to vote means you lose your right to complain about how inept the government officials are. If we don’t vote in significant numbers, then we are doing ourselves in by erasing our voice.

THAT ACTUALLY IS what the conservative ideologues who want to view our growing population numbers as a problem to be eradicated want. They’d like for us to be irrelevant in this society despite our population increases.

Which is why I think that casting ballots is the best way to spite their hostility!

I’m sure the ideologues are going to emphasize that NALEO figure of 12 million non-voters. The spin will be that Obama is doing so poorly that he can’t motivate his base.

Which also happens to be the argument made by one-time George W. Bush political operative Karl Rove – who wrote in a commentary published in the Wall Street Journal that Obama will lose because all of the interest groups that should support him aren’t as enthused as they were back in 2008.

AMONG THOSE HE cites are Latinos, who he says give Obama 20 percent less support now than we did three years ago.

That is based on the polls showing his support significantly lower than it was on Election Day 2008. Although those same polls show that of late, his Latino support is rising again – which means we’ll have to see how high it gets 17 months from now for the next presidential elections.

Besides, setting a precedent now for Latinos thinking of casting ballots as something that ought to be done come Election Day is something that will benefit us in the future.

Because the reality is that the share of Latinos who are both U.S. citizens AND old enough/eligible to vote will increase in coming decades. When it does, it is going to create a voting bloc so large and mighty that people of the future will look back and wonder how anyone could ever have been silly enough to try to dismiss it.

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