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Copyright 2000 / Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
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August 6, 2000, Sunday,
Home Edition
SECTION: Opinion; Part M; Page 5; Op Ed Desk
LENGTH: 800 words
HEADLINE: COMMENTARY;
ON LATINO VOTERS, BUSH GETS IT;
ELECTION 2000: THE DEMOCRATS HAVE SOME WORK TO DO TO RETAIN THE TWO-THIRDS
USUALLY LOYAL TO THE PARTY.
BYLINE: FRANK del OLMO, Frank del Olmo is an associate editor of The Times and a
regular, columnist
BODY:
Now that the Republican Party--or to be more precise, Texas Gov. George W.
Bush's presidential campaign--has laid on its
"We Love Latinos" shtick at the GOP convention, expect to hear a lot more about the so-called
"Latino vote" as the Democrats prepare to open their convention here next week.
But don't be fooled by simplistic analysis that would pigeonhole thousands of
newly enfranchised Latino voters, as
"soccer moms" were in 1996. You remember soccer moms--the busy suburban housewives who
helped President Clinton defeat GOP nominee Bob Dole four years ago. In the
2000 campaign, many in the news media have focused on Latinos as the
"new" voter bloc that might decide a close election between Bush and Vice President
Al Gore.
It's going to be more complicated than that. What could determine how Latinos
cast their presidential ballots is the difference between the
"Los Lobos vote" and the
"Vicente Fernandez vote." And right now the Bush campaign seems to grasp the distinction better than the
Democrats.
The Republicans even went so far as to have Fernandez, the popular Mexican
singer who is the best-known interpreter of traditional ranchera music, sing at
their Philadelphia convention the same night Bush gave his acceptance speech.
It was a remarkable gesture that the English-language media largely missed.
However, it boggled the minds of Spanish-speaking reporters who were there.
Here was a Mexican cultural icon at a political gathering where--four years
earlier--any Mexican who showed up ran the risk of being held for deportation
by allies of then-California Gov. Pete Wilson.
Wilson, of course, is the bete noire of the GOP's 2000 campaign. Republicans
would just as soon Latinos forget how Wilson tried to build a national
reputation, and a run for the presidency, in the early '90s by going after
illegal immigrants with Proposition 187 and other measures.
More than anything else, Wilson's persistent immigrant bashing is what
frightened thousands of Mexican citizens who had been living in the United
States to become U.S. citizens and register to vote in unprecedented numbers,
mostly for Democrats.
Latino political activists have been riding the momentum Wilson handed them
ever since. The Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, for instance,
is aiming to sign up 1 million new Latino voters this year, to add to the 4.9
million who cast ballots in 1996.
This brings me back to the important distinction between the Los Lobos vote and
the Vicente Fernandez vote.
Los Lobos, the popular Chicano rockers from East L.A., are among the
entertainers who will be featured at the Democratic convention. Their most
loyal fans are second- and third-generation Mexican Americans. About two-thirds
of these assimilated citizens always vote for Democrats. That has been the case
since 1960, when the John F. Kennedy campaign set up Viva Kennedy! clubs across
the Southwest. During that same period, Republicans usually have been content
to claim the remaining third of the Latino vote.
Yet especially popular GOP candidates, like Richard M. Nixon in 1972 and Ronald
Reagan in 1984, have been able to win close to 50% of the Latino vote. That is
what the Bush campaign is aiming for this year, and it could well happen.
The Texas governor worked so hard for the Latino vote in the primary campaign
that he came into the Republican convention already having assured himself of
his one-third of the Los Lobos vote--those assimilated Latinos who are
sympathetic to the GOP. But after the fiesta his people put on in Philadelphia,
Bush can start whittling away at the two-thirds of the Latino vote that usually
goes to Democrats. He began doing that by reaching out to the Latino voters who
are naturalized immigrants--people for whom Vicente Fernandez's traditional
music is a warm reminder of home.
The political loyalties of these new voters are not set in stone. Which is why,
in another great act of political theater, the Bush campaign asked California
Assemblyman Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) to address the GOP convention on its
climactic evening, in Spanish.
Maldonado's speech was the safe, patriotic rhetoric that is typical at U.S.
conventions. It stressed the hard work and sacrifices made by Maldonado's
father, a former bracero, so his son could go to college, become mayor of Santa
Maria and, eventually, be elected to the state Legislature. To Latino
immigrants more accustomed to being lambasted by Republicans, it must have
resonated like the Gettysburg Address.
Say what you will about George W. Bush. When it comes to Latinos, especially
Mexican Americans, he gets it. And the challenge facing Gore and the Democrats
as they descend on the most heavily Mexican American city in this country is:
How do we top that?
LOAD-DATE: August 6, 2000