What does a Mexican-hating right-wing radio shock jock named Jay Severin have in common with President Obama's yet-to-be-named Supreme Court nominee? The former already is, and the latter will likely turn out to be, a signifier of a new political calculus that is lowering the profile of the burgeoning Latino electorate, two-thirds of which is Mexican American.
Between 1998 and 2008, the Latino share of the national electorate nearly doubled from 3.6% to 7.4% of all voters. In 2000, Latino voters were so heavily courted that pundits labeled them the new soccer moms. But despite that surge, by 2008, Latinos had been downgraded almost to a political footnote.
To be sure, the campaigns went after Latino voters, and in the end, Latinos expanded Obama's margin of victory in a few battleground states -- primarily Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. But in the final analysis, they received a lot less attention last year than they did in 2000. In fact, the liveliest campaign discussion about Latino voters revolved around the idiotic -- and yet widely believed -- suggestion from the Hillary Clinton camp that Latinos would not vote for a black man.
But the dimming spotlight on this voting bloc had less to do with the Democratic nominee than it did with the rightward lurch of the Republican Party. Immigration reform activists like to say that Latinos rejected the GOP because of the Republicans' anti-immigrant stance, but the truth is even simpler than that.
In 2000, George W. Bush made outreach to Latinos a central part of his effort to cast himself as a "compassionate conservative." He promised immigration reform; he went to Mexico on his first foreign trip (Obama went to Canada); he leaked word of a possible Supreme Court nominee. Bush charmed, courted and routinely acknowledged Latino voters. And though he hadn't delivered on promises, Bush nonetheless raised his Latino support from 35% in 2000 to 44% in 2004. READ FULL STORYRead more…
