Blah, blah, blah

Clinton’s Latino spin: Latinos wont vote for a Black person

A few weeks ago, Sergio Bendixen, a Clinton pollster and Latino expert, publicly articulated what campaign officials appear to have been whispering for months. In an interview with Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker, Bendixen explained that “the Hispanic voter — and I want to say this very carefully — has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.”

But that is a crock. Many black mayors and congress members were elected because of Latino voters.

University of Washington political scientist Matt Barreto has compiled a list of black big-city mayors who have received broad Latino support over the last several decades. In 1983, Harold Washington pulled 80% of the Latino vote in Chicago. David Dinkins won 73% in New York in 1989. And Denver’s Wellington Webb garnered more than 70% in 1991, as did Ron Kirk in Dallas in 1995 and then again in 1997 and 1999.

He could have also added that longtime Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley won a healthy chunk of the Latino vote in 1973 and then the clear majority in his mayoral reelection campaigns of 1977, 1981, 1985 and 1989.

Here in L.A., all three black members of Congress represent heavily Latino districts and ultimately couldn’t survive without significant Latino support. Five other black House members represent districts that are more than 25% Latino — including New York’s Charles Rangel and Texan Al Green — and are also heavily dependent on Latino voters.

Potential ramifications of the media’s quick propagation of Clintons’ lies:

But the social costs of the Clintons’ strategy might end up being higher than the country is willing to pay. According to Stanford Law professor Richard Thompson Ford, who just published “The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse,” such political stunts can be “self-fulfilling prophecies.”

“It could make black voters more hostile to Latinos,” he said. “And Latinos who hear it might think that they somehow ought to be at odds with blacks. These kinds of statements generate interracial tensions.”

Dammit, Clintons. You’re already getting the white vote and that one, i’d have to assume, is racist. Obama is getting the youth vote though. Gloria Steinen can praise 60+ women all she wants for voting for Hillary, but I wonder if it ever crossed her mind that old white people may be racist–they did go to segregated or mostly segregated schools (even after 1954)–oh wait, never mind, so are the youth–there is a resegregation trend.