Hillary's Plan For Latino Votes In Texas: Exploit Little Mexican Boy

cross-posted to goodCRIMETHINK

I know politicians constantly exploit photo ops for their own purposes, but a friend told me about this awkward moment at Clinton's El Paso rally Tuesday night, and I had to share it. I feel bad for the little boy. See how they quickly escort him out of there!

I'm not saying other candidates don't do it. I'm just saying this looks damn ridiculous. She should have upped the ante, have the lil youngin wack an Obama pinata while he's up there.

NYTimes Off-Base on Obama, Clinton and Latinos

I just had to call out this New York Times article "In Obama's Pursuit of Latinos, Race Plays a Role" as not telling a full story. According to the piece by Adam Nagourney and Jennifer Steinhauer:

Mr. Obama confronts a history of often uneasy and competitive relations between blacks and Hispanics, particularly as they have jockeyed for influence in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

“Many Latinos are not ready for a person of color,” Natasha Carrillo, 20, of East Los Angeles, said. “I don’t think many Latinos will vote for Obama. There’s always been tension in the black and Latino communities. There’s still that strong ethnic division. I helped organize citizenship drives, and those who I’ve talked to support Clinton.”

Um, ok. Where to start with this article. To start, Latinos represent a heterogenous group of people with folks from different countries and of different races. Some Hispanics identify as white, some as black and some as Indian. Many are multi-racial. So to write this article and not factor that element is poor reporting and research indeed. It's an example of when white people get it wrong when it comes to reporting on minority communities.

I'd really like to see Latinos being approached as the complex set of communities within a community that they are rather than a monolith and a racist one at that. Ugh.

Naturally of course, the article turns to none other than Big Al, who probably put on an extra-special red, white and green track suit to deliver these comments:

The Rev. Al Sharpton of New York, who has been on the front line of many of the black-Latino battles in New York politics, said the tension would be a problem for Mr. Obama across the country and in New York, which also votes on Feb. 5. He said Mr. Obama would be at a disadvantage because of his choice to be a “race-neutral candidate.”

I feel like I may need surgery to remove my eyeballs from the back of my head. Come on. I love it though that the writers feel the need to defend tapping on Al for comments. I'm hoping to see more of that since there are plenty of other black leaders that don't get asked for comments.

The article also blissfully features no actual polling data on how Obama or Clinton (or Edwards for that matter) are doing among Latinos -- either nationally or by state. Let alone breaking the polling into sub-demographics such as white-identified or black-identified Latinos.

I'm not saying there isn't tension between blacks and Latinos. But ultimately isn't a lot of that based more on economic and social competition as society changes? There's plenty of racial tension among Hispanic Americans themselves and that may well play a factor in the 2008 race. I'd like to see some media coverage that goes beyond weak impressions and stereotypes. Hey New York Time -- how about the next time, this type of article gets written by a black reporter and a latino reporter working together? Revolutionary -- now that would be interesting!

Ohio, Florida -- Race, Voting and the 2008 Elections

Barack Obama's victory in Iowa yesterday is heartening and historic. Can't say that a tear didn't spark in even this bitter, cynical old eye of mine listening to his speech. Still, my other eye is turned to the future while reveling in the exciting present.

I've been wondering to myself the past few weeks, now if I was an unemployed Karl Rove twiddling my thumbs at home, what would I be doing? Well, I'd probably be taking a look at the electoral voting map of the U.S. and wondering where I can sow the seeds of another surprise GOP victory in 2008.

Now the numbers appear very much stacked against a Republican victory in 2008 and Democrats would appear to be poised to scoop up many races including president, house, senate and governor. Still it's at least still possible yet that we may end up with another close race where votes counted on a razor's edge can tip the balance of electoral votes and the race for president in one jackpot key state alone.

Rove and the RNC masterminded dirty tricks to make voting difficult for African-Americans and/or make sure their votes wouldn't be counted in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004. This strategy has been successful -- why wouldn't the Republicans try it again in 2008 to game the odds a little more in their favor?

Here's what those 2 purple states have in common -- they have large African-American populations (12% or higher) that have little political power or capital in their home states and they each carried 20 or more electoral votes. Ohio has 20 votes and Florida, 27.

Let's take a look at the jackpot states with 20 or more electoral votes at stake:

CA: 55
TX: 34
NY: 31
FL: 27
PA: 21
IL: 21
OH: 20

Texas is a reliably red state and a Bush stronghold. Yet it is also just over 12% African-American according to the 2005 Census and Obama has just proven that even in the one of the whitest of states, he can generate new voters and create crossover voters from Republican to Democrat. If I was a GOP leader, I'd start getting concerned about what a truly energized black vote in TX might look like combined with the crossover and new voter effects. Could a red state be at risk of turning blue?

The minority political power in TX is focused more on the latino community (which is multiracial). Hispanics of any race make up 35% of the population in TX. The GOP seems less likely to mess with them.

The African-Americans, as in FL and OH, are conveniently segregated in East Texas where the cotton plantations used to be along with strong numbers in Dallas and Houston. Blacks probably have a little too much political power in NY, IL and PA to rip off with impunity and they are too dispersed in the big blue state of CA. And folks are on their guard in FL and OH this go-round.

So, my current guess doing the math is that if we are going to see voting disenfranchisement, dirty tricks, weirdness and assorted hijinks, Texas might be the mark in 2008. That's my forecast for the broken machines, folks incorrectly stricken from voter files, closed polling stations, confusing robo-calls, harassment and all the other ways in which voting was disrupted in 2000 and 2004 for African-Americans. Think it's not possible? Then let me point you to one of America's supposedly greatest conspiracies of all time which was the successful plot to keep the slaves in Texas from knowing that the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued during the Civil War until 1865.

A Brief History:

What is Juneteenth? Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration of the ending of slavery. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that all slaves were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation - which had become official January 1, 1863.

Here's General Order No. 3, interesting unto itself:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

2 and a half years. There have been a lot of attempted explanations as to why the slaves in Texas were in the dark about the Emancipation Proclamation, news of which in other Confederate-controlled areas caused economic and military impacts as 200,000 blacks, mostly freedmen, swelled the ranks of the Union forces. None of those reasons are entirely convincing alone and some historians (and many black people) have suspected a well-organized, carefully networked effort among the state's leaders to keep the news of the emancipation as quiet as possible for as long as possible in Texas.

I realize that other ethnic groups such as Native Americans and Latinos have also been targeted and in order to save seats in the House and Senate, I wonder if the forecast won't show an increase in micro-disruption for voting as well this year. But maybe I'm totally off-base here. I've only been to Texas a few times and I know not to mess with TX. If you are from TX or one of the other high count electoral vote states, holler and let me know what you think.

Minorities Exceed White Use of Mobile TV

The digital divide has taken on a new twist as the chart shows below. Blacks, Hispanics and ahem, everybody else (?) are adopting new mobile and internet technologies at a higher rate than Caucasians. Here's an example -- Take a look at the chart above for more details by age, gender and ethnicity. Not new data (it's from over a year ago) but I just got it in the mail today...

When Subprime Gets A Cold, Black America Gets the Flu

Lots of folks including the New York Times Opinion page are clucking their tongues over the subprime mortgage mess.
People have previously said alarming things like:

``U.S. subprime losses have detonated a global financial markets disaster,'' said Vickie Hsieh, who helps oversees $1.4 billion at President Investment Trust Corp. in Taipei. (Bloomberg Aug 15, 2007)

"In the fixed income markets we have Armageddon." -- Jim Cramer of Mad Money (Aug 4, 2007)

Think everything's just fine since the Fed stepped in? Think again:

Nomura Holdings, the largest Japanese brokerage, said Monday that it would shut down its mortgage-backed securities business in the United States, the latest ca