War looms large for Latino voters
Scripps Howard News Service
May 7, 2004
Latino voters, one of the most coveted constituencies in America - and once a slam-dunk for Democrats - have increasingly joined the ranks of the GOP, thanks to a president who speaks Spanish and translates his name as "Jorge." But experts say President Bush's efforts to reach out may not offset one of the big unknowns of the 2004 election: how Latinos will vote based on an issue that has directly affected their communities, the war in Iraq.
"It is the X factor," said Harry Pachon, president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Los Angeles.
"It isn't a war that is removed from everyday life," Pachon said, noting that Latinos represent 12 percent of the casualties in Iraq.
Latinos "look at the faces and the names (of the dead), and it's . . . Hernandez, Gutierrez, Sanchez," he said. "It's Latino boys and girls dying out there."
The war is just one of the issues that political strategists for the Republican president and his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, are considering as they figure out how to pitch their message to Latino voters.
Latino voters "represent, in many ways, the great new national battleground in American politics," says Simon Rosenberg, who heads the New Democrat Network, a centrist party group.
"In this election, 1 out of every 11 voters will be Hispanic - and, in my lifetime, 1 out of 5."
Rosenberg notes the profile of this dynamic electorate: Half of all registered Latinos are Spanish-language dominant and foreign-born - and their numbers are booming. Over the next 20 years, he said "750,000 Hispanics will turn 18 every year."
And that wealth of first-time, new-immigrant Latino voters could make the difference in some of the battleground states this fall, he said. For example, Latinos make up more than 10 percent of the voting-age population in eight states, but almost half of those Latinos who could cast ballots aren't registered to vote, according to a study by the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute.
For example, the study found that in New Mexico, where Democrat Al Gore won by 366 votes in 2000, an estimated 204,000 Latinos are eligible - but not registered - to vote in November.
Both parties are aggressively battling to improve their numbers over just four years ago, when exit polls showed that Bush won an estimated 38 percent of the 7.3 million Latino votes cast, while Gore received about 61 percent.
This time around, both campaigns have set the bar higher: The Bush team has said it aims for 40 percent of Latino support to win re-election.
Democrats say Kerry needs to win a greater percentage of Latinos nationwide than Gore did four years ago if he hopes to unseat the incumbent.
A recent Los Angeles Times poll of California found Kerry favored by 58 percent of Latinos surveyed to 36 percent for Bush.
Polls show Kerry with a significant advantage among all voters in California while Bush is far ahead in his home state of Texas, another state with a large Latino voting bloc. But the strategies the candidates are using to win over Latinos in California are the same ones they will use to reach these voters in states where the contest is close, such as New Mexico, Arizona and Florida.
In making his case, "Kerry has a natural competitive advantage" with Latino voters, Pachon of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute said. He noted that 4 out of 5 Latino elected officials are Democrats, and Latino leaders such as Los Angeles City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa - a key Kerry supporter - are influential among Latinos.
Though some critics have said Kerry's campaign lacks many high-profile Latino faces and came late to recognizing the influence of Spanish-speaking media, analysts such as Pachon said Kerry has a strong resume and record to attract Latino voters.
"He's Catholic . . . his war record and his (stands) on social and economic issues, like education and job training, will resonate very positively," Pachon said.
But Republicans, such as former GOP consultant Michael Madrid, say Kerry has to play catch-up.
"Bush is a known quality among (Latino) voters, and that makes it a very difficult hill for John Kerry to climb," he says.
Madrid and others say the president has demonstrated his appeal to Latinos who treasure family values and upward mobility and who are social conservatives on issues such as abortion and gay marriage.
Bush campaign leaders, such as financier Gerald Parsky, also proudly note that the president has consistently demonstrated a personal style and a deep affinity for Latino culture that have won Latino voters to his cause.
Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, acknowledged that when it comes to understanding Latinos "there's no way that Kerry can compete with Bush," who has lived in Texas and whose brother Jeb is married to a Latina.
But he points to studies that show Latinos may consider less personal issues on the way to the voting booth. One such analysis of the Latino electorate based on 2000 exit polls by the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute argues that "Latinos make up their minds on who to vote for more on the basis of a candidate's position on the issues than on personality styles."
That's one reason the New Democrat Network has launched a $5 million Spanish-language television campaign aimed at reminding Latinos about what it calls a legacy of promesas rotas, broken promises, by Bush, said Maria Cardona, who heads the group's Latino outreach. The ads take the White House to task on job losses, health care and education. They will be seen now through November by millions of Latino voters nationwide.
(Distributed by Scripps-McClatchy Western Service, http://www.shns.com.)