MARCELA SANCHEZ: GOP is not welcoming to Hispanics
By Marcela Sanchez
09/07/07 05:43:40

WASHINGTON -- If your stomach burns at the thought of the debate between U.S. presidential candidates airing in Spanish, consider this advice: Tranquilo (relax). There is no need to get an ulcer over Sunday's live event to be broadcast by Univision. English is not under threat.

In terms of a Spanish-language presidential forum, this one is quite tame. It has an English-only rule after all. No participant will be allowed to answer in Spanish, even candidates who are fluent, such as New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, or proficient, such as Sen. Christopher Dodd. And don't be too worried about the second-ever Spanish language debate scheduled for a week later with Republican candidates: No one except Sen. John McCain has "time in his schedule" to attend.

What is significant is that Sunday's event, to be held at the University of Miami, will be about issues that interest Hispanics: the high dropout rate among Latino students; Iraq and the thousands of Hispanics serving there; family separations caused by immigration raids; lack of health insurance; and relations with Latin America.

In other words, while participants' answers will be translated into Spanish, the issues -- not the language -- will be the event's main draw. Broadcasting the debate in Spanish, as Univision anchor Maria Elena Salinas told me, "is more symbolic than anything else." Salinas added that "if they [Hispanics] watch English-only [media] they are never going to have their issues addressed."

According to a Pew Hispanic Center poll, the majority of Hispanics in the U.S. watch both English- and Spanish-language channels to get their news. In 2004, three-fourths of all adult Hispanics got their news in English, and two-thirds in Spanish. "Even fluent English speakers rely on Spanish-language media to get news from Latin America and about Hispanic communities in the United States," the Pew poll reported.

So far, most candidates have been equating Hispanic concerns with immigration. And "that's a fallacy," said Harry Pachon, president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute in California. Every survey of Latino voters done in the past couple of years, he said, reflects other priorities such as education, the economy and the war in Iraq.

Sunday's debate may turn out to be Democrats merely offering platitudes on Latino issues, but at this point, with many Hispanics feeling alienated, platitudes are something. They certainly are a better political tactic for drawing Latinos, the fastest growing segment of U.S. voters, than what the Republicans offer.

Because the use of the Spanish language by Hispanics has become such an issue with the Republican base, GOP candidates won't be seizing the same opportunity and so will lose an important chance to demonstrate something more than toughness on immigration.

The Latino vote will be more important than ever in battleground states such as Florida, New Mexico and Nevada. According to Louis DeSipio, an expert on Latino voting behavior at the University of California at Irvine, Republicans will need at least 30% of the Hispanic vote in those states in order to win.

That is possible if Republicans merely retain some of their historic gains from the past presidential election, when Bush pulled in 40% of the Hispanic vote. The Democrats have been losing ground among Hispanics in presidential elections since Bill Clinton drew 72% in 1996. Al Gore in 2000 got 62% and John Kerry pulled in 53% in 2004.

Democrats recovered some of that vote in the 2006 midterm elections, but Republicans have the most to gain if they continue to borrow a page from the playbook of Bush's former political strategist, Karl Rove. While U.S.-born Hispanics are heavily Democratic, a segment of the Hispanic electorate only likely to grow -- foreign-born Hispanics -- is up for grabs. Bush spent $3.3 million on Spanish-language TV ads for his re-election, $2 million more than Kerry.

Bush's "phenomenal operation in 2004," said Joe Garcia, director of the New Democrat Network's Hispanic Strategy Center, was based on a message that invited immigrants "to be a winner" with the Republicans. That was a smart political tactic considering, Garcia said, that "nobody believes more in the American Dream than ... immigrants." And yet the ugly turn that the immigration debate took in recent years appears to have flipped the message of welcome to unwelcome.

Through their silence, Republicans seem to be taking full credit for that.
Marcela Sanchez is a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group (1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071). Her e-mail address is desdewash@washpost.com.

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