Latino Support For Obama
Mario, over at Nuestra Voice explains why the recent lack of Latino support for Obama speculation, based on race is not true.
The post is a good read; if you haven't checked out Mario's radio show, you should.
The failure of the Obama campaign to garner Latino support is that his campaign was simply less accessible to Latinos than was the Clinton campaign during a critical early decision making period...
Richardson has even less Latino support than Obama in the poll Hutchinson quoted. In fact Richardson has received less financial support from Latinos than has Clinton. An indication that among even the Latino political elite who have shown tremendous ethnic political loyalty for at least two decades Richardson has been outdone by Clinton.
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I must disagree with you, if ever so slightly.
If we were to put this race in merely racial terms the we must remember that in the early part of this campaign Latinos had a choice between a Anglo woman, a number of Anglo men, a bi-racial man who many identify as African American , and one of their own, a Latino. So far the vast majority of decided Latino voters have chosen the Anglo woman.
That really doesn't address the issue. The issue isn't why Latinos don't gravitate towards their own. There are many reasons Richardson's campaign floundered and I won't go there again. Which raises the second flaw in this argument: you're not talking about four candidates on equal footing. If Richardson and Clinton had started campaigning at the same time and with comparable amounts of resources, that comparison could hold. But Clinton's overwhelming amounts of $$$ and name recognition give her a substantial advantage over Richardson.
Besides, Latinos may not have supported Richardson for the same reasons other groups didn't: he just wasn't a good candidate.
Latino “voters” are the same much researched Latino “consumers” who respond to a respectful early overture from a product or service and once decided are hard to shake loose.
And his support for this statement is . . . where? Besides making a flawed comparison between politicians and products - products are what they are while politicians are constantly changing, adjusting, and refocusing their message - I hardly believe Latinos as a group have made up their minds and decided "yes, it's Clinton" particularly with most of the States yet to cast their votes.
Clinton simply out-campaigned the Obama camp early.
I don't know - nor does the entry say - what efforts the Obama camp has made at reaching out to Latino leaders and the Latino community. However, that quote is offered as a fact without any supporting information.
Which argument do I believe? Both, actually. I think there may be some Latinos who may not want to vote for an African-American while there may be others who feel more comfotable with Clinton because she's a more familiar quantity than Obama.
I just don't believe the "nah, we're not racist" argument.