The Political Whore

I spent Saturday at Walt Disney World with seven leading Democratic presidential candidates as they made a play for the hearts and minds of Latino public officials gathered there. Here’s my report, which will run in print in our CL issue being published Wednesday:

LAKE BUENA VISTA — They call this “the nation’s Latino political convention.” But if U.S. demographics continue their current trends, in two decades both parties’ presidential conventions could look at lot like the 24th annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

The gathering drew more than 1,000 NALEO members to Walt Disney World’s Contemporary Hotel, where members listened to the seven leading Democratic presidential candidates on Saturday. They heard from just one Republican — dark horse Duncan Hunter, on Friday. The major GOP candidates cited scheduling conflicts; more likely, they feared fallout from the recent immigration reform battle and the fact that the nonpartisan organization’s membership is strongly Democratic.

The conference was significant beyond the presidential forum. Hispanics make up the largest minority group in this country, and are its fastest-growing bloc, too. Latinos make up more than 20 percent of the voting public in Florida.

“Whoever will be the next president will need to work with this constituency to move our country forward,” NALEO President John Bueno said.

Latino power has started to show up in election results. Just a decade ago, there were 3,700 Hispanic officeholders in the U.S., mostly at local and school-board levels. Today, NALEO counts more than 5,200 Latino elected officials, including three U.S. senators (one is Florida’s Mel Martinez) and a legit (if currently running fourth at best) presidential candidate, Bill Richardson, the Mexican-American governor of New Mexico.

Richardson, who only a few days before looked unengaged at the Howard University debate, was a different candidate in front of the crowd of supporters he called “mi gente, mi familia” — my people, my family.

Richardson didn’t overplay his Hispanic heritage. He didn’t have to. When he inadvertently burned up almost all of his allotted two minutes for his closing statement while reminiscing about the late Edward Roybal, a California congressman instrumental in founding the Hispanic caucus and NALEO, forum moderator Arturo Vargas told him he had only 30 seconds left.

“My God,” Richardson quipped, “I’m the only Latino running for president. Give me a break.”

Audience members erupted in laughter and applause. He got his full two minutes. He used it to tell them about his hopes for a better United States for everyone — en español. He got a total of three standing O’s.

The candidate forum’s format may have been largely tame — the candidates were given nearly identical questions in 15-minute sessions that kept them from being on stage together or interacting — but it had impact nonetheless, being telecast nationally on Univision.

And just because Richardson is un hermano doesn’t mean that the Latino vote is breaking all his way. For that reason, the other Democratic candidates had to show up. Sen. Christopher Dodd bounced back and forth between English and Spanish, his diction near perfect from years spent as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. The non-Spanish-speaking front-runners hustled to make sure the press took notice of their Latino support. Former Sen. John Edwards’ OneCorps folks and Sen. Barack Obama’s O-Train volunteers turned out roughly 100 supporters each to wave bilingual signs, chant and welcome the candidates as they drove up to the convention center.

Sen. Hillary Clinton went a step further: She held a news conference with 100 Latino elected officials and supporters to tout her newly formed National Hispanic Leadership Council, which included two Democratic Florida legislators, Darren Soto and Luis Garcia — both of whom were elected in November to formerly GOP-held seats.

In front of a podium adorned with an “América con Hillary” sign, Clinton served red meat to the crowd — universal health care, a more prosperous middle class, global warming, job creation and universal pre-K for all 4-year-olds, with an emphasis on helping non-English speakers.

She also stated that a “new relationship” with Latin America would be a foreign policy priority for her administration.

“We have ignored our neighbors to the south” and opened the door to demagogues such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Clinton told her backers. She took no questions from Florida and national media; instead, she was swept to a backroom for a press avail with Iowa and New Hampshire reporters who’d been flown in by her campaign.
Clinton, as her strategists pointed out in a lengthy e-mail during the conference, is ahead in early polling of Hispanic voters in Latino-rich primary states, including California, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and New Jersey — not to mention a 46-point lead in that demographic in a nationwide Gallup poll.

Those results didn’t faze Obama supporters.

“It’s not surprising that the name Clinton is recognized,” said Gloria Romero, the majority leader of the California Senate and an Obama supporter from East L.A. “That’s to be expected.”

Romero was worried about a shift in her state by registered Latino Democrats to the Independent category. “Latinos are beginning to move out of the party,” she said.
One of her colleagues also working the reporters in the spin room, Pomona, Calif., Mayor Norma Torres, added, “We have been disappointed in some of the leaders who have come up.”

Both said they backed Obama because he appealed to young voters and represented a part of the future, not the past.

The crowd in the Fantasia ballroom warmly received Obama, who talked about the war in Iraq with the advantage of being the only candidate in the top tier who opposed it from the start. Outside in the lobby, his supporters waved signs — “Guerra, no! Obama, si!” – that drove the point home.

Immigration was at the center of the issues for this crowd, especially since the Senate defeat of the compromise immigration reform occurred while NALEO was in session in Orlando. Richardson called out “xenophobes in both parties.” Obama pointed out the “ugly undertone that crept into the debate this year.” Sen. Joe Biden described it as a “race to the bottom” to see which politician or radio talk show host could be more anti-Hispanic. Obama, Biden and Clinton, however, had to explain why they voted for a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border, and even Richardson was called on the carpet for “militarizing the border” by sending his state’s National Guard to the Mexican line.

The immigration reform legislation that died in the Senate last week was killed by Democrats who found it too cumbersome, especially provisions that would split up families, and by Republicans who don’t want anything that resembles amnesty for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants working in this country. Even though the GOP party chairman Martinez spoke to the NALEO crowd to bemoan the legislation’s demise, it appears that Republicans are bearing the brunt of public disappointment.
“I believe that the Republican Party has hurt itself tremendously on the issue of immigration,” Richardson told reporters in the spin room after his speech.

Latinos helped elect George W. Bush in 2000 and always showed up in surprising numbers for his brother Jeb’s two gubernatorial runs in this state. Since Democrats can’t take Latinos for granted any more, they were trying hard to win hearts and minds in Orlando — sometimes a bit too hard. Poll-straggler Dennis Kucinich followed up his critique of the “illegal occupation” of Iraq in a war “based on lies” with a closing two-minute statement in halting, poorly pronounced Spanish. He patted his chest to talk about his corazon and promised to work on los derechos humanos (human rights).

The initial confusion/bemusement on the faces of the delegates melted to grins and applause as Kucinich finished. At least he tried. And that’s more than you can say for the Republicans.

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