by José de la Isla
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Gary Trudeau, creator of the comic strip Doonesbury, writes his cartoon far ahead of time, and that is why he declared Barack Obama winner of the presidential race before the first election day polls opened.
My deadline is similar. As you read this, you know the outcome. I don’t.
The office pool here is basically divided into three. One group says Latinos will get credit for the election only if the sun rises over Catalina Island in the West.
They reason Latinos mostly populate states top-heavy in the Pacific, Mountain and Central time zones. If the election turns into an Obama rout, the media will call it early and credit the Eastern time zone coalitions of women, working class voters, white males and blacks. A long-term perception will form that will be hard to shake. Latinos will get hung with the jacket of having come in too late.
Another group just can’t see how the Latino vote matters at all. These agnostics are just plain wrong. Spend a little time looking into how John Kennedy in Texas and Illinois and George W. Bush in Florida gathered enough votes to win and you will see how decisive the Hispanic vote has been in past presidential elections.
But today is not 1960, nor is it 2000. Other factors characterize the 2008 political picture. Most important is that the cast drawing voters to the polls is much larger.
The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials reports 612 Hispanics are running in U.S. Senate and House races and state senate and assembly contests in 37 states. These are “boots on the ground” kinds of contests. Their numbers have been expanding for years. Now 6,000 Latinos hold elective or appointive offices in the United States. Many of the current candidates will later load their parties’ tickets and become their states’ governors and U.S. senators.
In the past, nine states representing 81 percent of the total U.S. Hispanic population Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Texas — have taken the spotlight. All 30 Hispanic members of Congress and all but a few in state legislatures come from those traditional states This year there are five certain (running unopposed) or very, very strong new Hispanic candidates competing in non-traditional states, one each in Kansas, Wyoming and Massachusetts, plus two in Oklahoma.
That’s news because observers of Latino politics (and the media they influence) too often take a regional, not a national perspective.
Some commentators imploded the news because they have trouble understanding geography beyond their home picture windows.
Now is a good time to consult a Rand McNally or Google Map about where interesting races are taking place. They show how the nation is stretching its demographic boundaries — to Delaware, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Washington and many other states.
Gaining political representation means having a better chance to be heard. More individuals are respected when they are recognized as comprising part of the larger community.
Stereotypes start collapsing. Chances of a more responsive government improve. Without that, how can government get on with the business of finding solutions to tough problems?
Participation is what marked the origins of Hispanics in politics in a few scattered Southwestern towns and cities by a handful of people back to the 1930s. But the principles have remained the same. Now there is national civic engagement by 11 million registered Latino voters.
Since you are in the post-election present and I am writing this in the pre-election past, I can’t see what happened to Latino contenders in your state — those I already mentioned, as well as others in such places as Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Alaska, Nebraska, Montana, Louisiana and the Carolinas. So do me a favor and look up the results for me at www.naleo.org.
[José de la Isla, author of “The Rise of Hispanic Political Power” (Archer Books 2003), writes weekly commentaries for Hispanic Link News Service. Email: joseisla@yahoo.com]. ©2008
