The "Sleeping Giant" Has Awoken

“Make no mistake about it,” Senator Barack Obama said while addressing the crowd on July 13 at the annual gathering of the National Council of La Raza, an organization aimed at promoting the rights of the Spanish-speaking American population, according to the Globe and Mail, a Canadian Newspaper. “The Latino community holds this election in your hands.”

The Senator from Illinois was equally insistent on the potential for representation the Hispanic population in the United States holds in the 2008 Presidential election when speaking to a mostly Latino crowd of around 10,000 gatherers in the New Mexican town of Espanola on September 19, according to an article in London’s The Guardian, saying, “I want you to start voting your numbers. Start flexing your muscles.”

Senator Obama appears to be putting his money where his mouth is, spending more than $20 million campaign dollars on outreach to the Latino population nationwide, and with good reason according to recent statistics. The United States now bosts the second largest Hispanic population of any country in the world, trailing only Mexico. According to a study conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center in December of 2007, about 45.5 million Latinos live in the United States. One in eight people in this country comes from a Hispanic background. Last year, salsa outsold ketchup in US grocery stores as measured by revenues. The Hispanic population and their influence on American culture in general has undeniably become increasingly pronounced.

The implications for this in terms of voter constituency are rather complicated, however. Only 34 of the some 45 million Latinos estimated to be living in the US are doing so legally, and the Hispanic population is significantly younger than the national average, resulting in a dwindled voter pool accounting for only about 6 or 7 percent of the total vote in the November election.

“But despite these modest numbers, Hispanics loom as a potential ‘swing vote’ in next years’ presidential race…because they are strategically located on the 2008 Electoral College map,” concludes the December 2007 Pew Center report.

The numbers support this finding. In the “swing states” of New Mexico, Florida, Nevada, and Colorado, Latinos constitute a much larger percentage of the eligible electorate than they do nationally (37 percent, 14 percent, 12 percent and 12 percent, respectively.) These states represent a cumulative 46 electoral votes up for grabs, demonstrating the growing importance of the Latino vote in the election as a whole.

Senator Obama is not the only presidential candidate attempting to reach out to the Hispanic community. Republicans and Democrats alike appear to have recognized that the voting demographic long-referred to as “the sleeping giant” by political analysts in this country has been stirred. Though historically U.S. Hispanics have tended to side with Democrats, George W. Bush’s emphasis on conservative family values appealed to this largely religious population, aided by his attempts to reach a consensus on immigration reform, helping him garner 40 percent of the Latino vote according to exit polls in the 2004 election. Political analysts have speculated that Senator John McCain must surpass this number in the Latino population in order to win the general election. If this proves true, things aren’t looking great for the Republican party.

While both candidates appear to have pros and cons for Latinos, Hispanic registered voters supported Obama over McCain by a 66 percent to 23 percent margin in a nationwide survey conducted by the Pew center in June and July of this year. The survey found that Latino voters have moved acutely toward the Democratic camp in the past two years, reversing gains made by the GOP earlier in the decade.

Senator Obama trailed Senator Hillary Clinton 4-to-1 among Latinos nationally (68% to 17%) in the Democratic primaries as late as February, according to a poll conducted by CNN. It has been widely suggested that this may have been due to tensions felt between the Latino and African-American communities as both struggle to claw their way up from the poverty and poor living conditions affecting many minorities in this country.
A local Republican chairman in northern New Mexico was forced to resign in September after giving the following statement to a BBC reporter: “Hispanics came here as conquerors. African-Americans came here as slaves. Hispanics consider themselves above blacks. They won’t vote for a black president.”

The remark was met with general upheaval in the media and in the public in New Mexico as Hispanic leaders quickly came forward to discredit the idea. Gabriel Sanchez, a professor of political science at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, believes Hispanic voters are concerned with the same issues as all American voters, not with the racial advancement of one minority over another, according to the Guardian article.

“The million dollar question is whether it is race or the economy that is motivating Democratic Hispanics,” says Sanchez. “I would be shocked if race was the deciding factor, but you never know.”

An early June polling of 800 registered Latino voters in 21 states conducted in-part by political scientists at the University of Washington in Seattle showed Latino citizens ranking immigration- a matter uniquely tied to the Hispanic community- as the third most important issue influencing their vote in the 2008 election, trailing jobs and the economy and the war in Iraq. Graduation rates far below the national average and lack of affordable health insurance for middle and lower-class working families keep healthcare and education reform high on the priority list of issues in the Latino population.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, the only Hispanic governor in the nation, supports Obama emphatically based on these issues, saying the Democratic candidate “has al the right positions” to appeal to the Latino community,according to a USA Today article, if he can win their trust.

Though George W. Bush did well with Latino voters in 2004, the Republican party’s perceived mishandling of immigration reform in congress left the demographic feeling as though they were criminalized for being Hispanic, resulting in 70 percent Democrat Latino vote by the 2006 midterm elections, according to the Pew Report.

While Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain once enjoyed renown in the Latin American community as a strong advocate of immigration reform, his back-tracking on the issue during his campaign to appease his conservative base has alienated many Hispanics-a demographic the Senator can’t afford to let slip any further.

“There’s been a real rebellion against the Republican party (on the issue of immigration)…They’ve been vilified in the media for three years and they don’t like it. McCain abdicated his position so instead of being seen as a champion, he’s a betrayer. It’s been a sea change,” according to Simon Rosenberg, director of NDN, a liberal think that focuses on Latino issues, in the Guardian article.

Ana Navarro, McCain's adviser on Hispanic affairs, concedes that the party’s support diminished among new Hispanic citizens because of some Republican lawmakers' remarks during the recent congressional debate over proposed immigration reforms, but says the McCain campaign is using Spanish-language ads to convince Hispanics that he has and will continue to fight for their cause.

Senator McCain has also recently endorsed a series of political ads, according to the Washington Times, that will run in areas with concentrated Latino populations vilifying Sen. Obama by linking him to anti-American tirades by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. While the effect these scare-tactics will have on the Hispanic voting population is yet unknown, it seems safe to conclude that Senator McCain will have to do more to win the confidence of the Latino community than airing ads in Spanish criticizing his opponent if he hopes to emerge from November 4 as the President of the United States.