2012 Campaign

Governor Brian Sandoval’s Achilles Heel

By DrVMDS on February 20, 2012

This article originally appeared on NBCLatino

Nevada governor Brian Sandoval is arguably one of the strongest Republican vice presidential picks for 2012. Unlike Senator Marco Rubio, Gov. Sandoval is not dogged by financial controversies.  And unlike New Mexico governor, Susana Martinez, Sandoval is not as polarizing a leader. However, there is one weakness Sandoval cannot escape: His lack of popularity among Latino voters.

A presidential running mate is ideally meant to do three things

1.)  help the presidential nominee in appealing to the general electorate

2.)  secure the swing state they are from

3.)  provide the ticket regional balance

Sandoval checks off all three boxes.  While Gov. Martinez and Senator Rubio can also check off box two and three. the first box is a far miss.  Both of these individuals ran in 2010 on a Tea Party platform and threw their lot in with the most conservative elements of the Republican Party.   Continue Reading →

Latinos

Latino Conservatives? GOP Hopes Misplaced

By DrVMDS on

This Op-Ed was originally published in USA Today

One of the Newt Gingrich campaign’s top 10 reasons for why Latinos should support him for president is that “he shares our conservative values.” Republican reasoning often goes like this: While the majority of Latinos do not agree with the GOP on fiscal or immigration matters, at least their faith and social conservatism will make them Republican-friendly.

The GOP, however, shouldn’t hold its breath. The idea that Latinos are social conservatives akin to white evangelicals is simply off-base. A recent poll by impreMedia and Latino Decisions of 500 registered Latino voters late last year found that religious beliefs would not have an impact on the vote of 53% of Latinos, while 17% indicate that it will have a little impact.

Latinos are not significantly more conservative than non-Latinos. In fact, when it comes to gay marriage, a November Univision-Latino Decisions poll found Latinos are more progressive that non-Latinos. Though 43% of Latino voters supported gay marriage, only 35% of general voters did. Continue Reading →

Latinos

Latino-Mormon Linkages

By DrVMDS on February 13, 2012

This article originally appeared in NBCLatino

Today immigration has become the most visible tie that binds Latinos and Mormons.  The Church of Latter-day Saints and many of its prominent members have been at the forefront of promoting sensible and humane immigration policies.

However, the linkage between the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS) and Latinos is far deeper than a common policy interest.  There is a theological linkage between the two that stretches back to the founding of the Mormon Church.  In other words, for Mitt Romney the linkage between his faith and Latinos is much more nuanced than that of his father being born in Chihuahua.

Latin America has the highest growth of Mormons in the world.  In Mexico there are over one million members and a total of 12 temples.  There are Mormons and accompanying religious structures throughout Latin America with the exception of Cuba.  Within the United States, Latinos now make up the fastest growing segment within the Church.  From 2000 to 2010 the number of Spanish language congregations more than doubled from 377 to 760.

From a doctrinal point of view, the LDS Church has had an interest in Latinos since the very beginning. The Book of Mormon is based on tablets that the founder of the Church, Joseph Smith, found through a celestial revelation in the 1820s.  According to the LDS Church these tablets are an account of people who had come to the Americas long ago and how Jesus Christ came to them and taught him his gospel.

These people who inhabited the Americans were recognized as pre-Columbian persons and are known as Lamanites within the Book of Mormon.  The Lamanites are considered special children of God by LDS members because of their interaction with Jesus Christ.   Continue Reading →

Politics

PBS To The Contrary Panel Discussion

By DrVMDS on February 10, 2012

In this episode we discuss the comprise President Obama came to with religious leaders regarding contraception, the role of women in the front lines and how the President is faring with progressive women.

Watch February 10, 2012 on PBS. See more from To The Contrary.

Politics

The Enduring Nature of Race in Politics

By DrVMDS on February 6, 2012

This post originally appeared on POLITICO’s Arena

In his landmark speech, “A More Perfect Union” Barack Obama called on America to look at its different stories, skin colors, cultures, and origins – its diversity – as a backdrop to pursuing a better future as a collective nation.  In other words, getting beyond these differences would bring about a perfect union.  The problem is that this unified ideal is impossible.  Humans are hardwired to distil the world into a simple division of us and them, where the us is naturally favored and the them is ignored at best and hated at worst.

The election of the nation’s first black president and the potential election of the first Mormon president in the near future reinforces the conventional wisdom of forward movement toward a society oblivious to group differences.  However, we are not and have never been on a one-way street to erasing prejudice as Obama’s speech on race would have us believe.  Though its incarnations change prejudice is a permanent fixture – in the late 1800s it was the Chinese Exclusion Act, today its Arizona SB 1070.  In the 1940s it was the Japanese internment camps, today its Arab-American profiling.  In the 1960s Catholicism was John F. Kennedy’s biggest political obstacle, today Mitt Romney’s is Mormonism.  Historically, black-white animosity marked the Southern landscape, today that has shifted to black-Latino animosity.

Prejudice can be dampened to allow for a harmonious union, but it cannot disappear.  Moreover, just as easily as prejudice is dampened it can be amplified to make our union even less perfect.

Latinos

For Latinos in 2012, It’s Not Just About Immigration

By DrVMDS on January 30, 2012

This article originally appeared in the January 30, 2012 issue of The Nation magazine with an accompanying podcast 

José Díaz-Balart, chief political analyst for Telemundo, had one important task during the September 7, 2011, Republican debate—to ask the candidates about immigration. Díaz-Balart asked his question, got his answer and was dismissed from the stage. The stereotype was fulfilled; a Latino asked one question and the one question was about immigration. With that box checked, the moderators and candidates were able to return to “non-Latino” issues.

The problem is, the issues that keep Latinos up at night—like double-digit unemployment rates, living at the poverty end of the wealth gap and having the highest high school dropout rates in the country—go well beyond immigration. Herein lies the challenge for President Obama. He must recast his connection with Latino voters beyond a narrow focus on immigration and engage Latinos as the multi-issue electorate they are.

It’s easy to see why Latinos have been typecast within the narrow frame of immigration. The vast majority are immigrants or the children or grandchildren of immigrants. In 2008 then-candidate Barack Obama used the issue to connect with Latinos by highlighting the importance of immigration reform. This strategy was wildly successful and netted him close to 70 percent of the Latino vote. Today that strategy is counterproductive. Latino voters are keenly aware that “La Promesa de Obama”—as his campaign pledge for comprehensive immigration reform became known—was not fulfilled. And now they have other priorities: according to the latest impreMedia-Latino Decisions tracking polls, economics have eclipsed immigration as their top concern. For Latinos, the economy and the related issue of education have come to demand the same level of attention that President Obama once gave immigration. Continue Reading →

2012 Campaign

NOW with Alex Wagner: A discussion of Political Ads

By DrVMDS on

In the last section of the program we discuss negative political advertisements. For better or for worse, political ads are a ubiquitous presence in our political landscape, however over the last couple of years ads have gotten more creative and hard hitting. What is important to remember about political ads, like any type of ad, is that the verbal message is just one small part of the overall message delivery. In the case of negative political ads, the non-verbal emotional cues elicited by music, colors, and camera work are immensely important — a picture is worth a thousand words.

Latinos

UP with Chris Hayes: A Discussion of the FL Primary

By DrVMDS on January 29, 2012

In the lead up to the Florida primary political attention has turned to the Latino electorate. Florida is the exception that confirms the Latinos-as Democrats rule where the vast majority of Latino voters support the GOP. In this portion of UP we discuss how the Florida Latino political landscape compares to the larger national Latino political landscape and how the issue of immigration is not a deciding issue for the Florida electorate.

2012 Campaign

The Gingrich Latino Puzzle

By DrVMDS on January 25, 2012

This article was originally published at NBC Latino

Judging by the more than 400 “likes” on Newt Gingrich – Para Latinos Facebook, Newt Gingrich should do well with Latinos in the Florida primary this coming Tuesday. By contrast, Mitt Romney only has a dozen or so “likes” on his page.  But Facebook popularity does not win elections because according to the Univision-ABC-Latino Decisions poll released this week of Latino Florida voters Romney wins the popularity contest that really matters.

Less than a week before the primary, Mitt Romney’s favorability among Latinos in Florida is at 40%, comfortably ahead of Newt Gingrich’s 33% approval. More specifically, Romney’s favorables are not only higher but his unfavorables are lower than Gingrich’s. When these Latino voters were asked who they would vote for, Romney’s favorability ratings translated into solid vote intentions, 35%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 20%, Ron Paul at 6%, and Rick Santorum at 8%.

Gingrich may be surging among the general electorate in Florida, but among Floridian Latinos a surge has yet to materialize. They refuse to embrace Newt Gingrich even though he is the only candidate that has coordinated a consistent Latino outreach effort since late 2010. His is the only campaign with a full fledged Spanish language website, presidentegingrich.com, which greets the Latino visitors with a list of 10 reasons why he’s their guy. Romney on the other hand has a a rinky-dink English language page that looks like a low-tech blog. Continue Reading →

2012 Campaign

Santorum’s Immigration Hypocrisy

By DrVMDS on January 8, 2012

Rick Santorum, the descendant of Italian immigrants chose to kick off his presidential campaign in Somerset county Pennsylvania where his immigrant grandfather toiled in the coal mines.  Santorum’s canned stump speech recounts his grandfather’s journey out of Italy in search of a better life for his children emphasizing the sacrifice and work ethnic of his immigrant family.  The GOP candidate’s boastful immigrant narrative fits squarely into his campaign message; yet, without missing a beat the second-generation immigrant declares his staunch opposition to immigration.

In Rick Santorum’s world there are two types of immigrants – the good ones and the bad ones.  His family falls into the first category, present-day Latino immigrants into the latter.  There are no good immigrants or bad immigrants, however there is good immigration policy that provides legal channels of entry to low-skilled workers and bad immigration policy that overlooks macro-economic factors; Santorum’s policies fall into the latter category. He chooses to ignore the basic parallel between his immigrant ancestors that came in the early 1900s and those that come today, the demand for immigrants in the United States is the same. Continue Reading →