One of my goals this cycle is to make the point that the politics of illegal immigration and the pursuit of the Latino vote should most often be regarded as two separate issues. Polls show that immigration is a bigger issue for non-Latinos - read whites - than it is for Latino voters. Latino voters are here already - in most cases, they’ve been here for generations - and they’re legal, so they have other things to worry about beyond the arcane details of the latest legislation stuck in DC.

In my mind, there is one standard that Latino voters care about when it comes to illegal immigration:

Is the policy - or candidate - racist?

If the candidate is perceived as racist, then Latino voters who otherwise support a candidate’s tough immigration policies will withdraw their support for the candidate. In today’s San Jose Mercury News, Kate Folmar and Edwin Garcia report on the effort being made by Arnold Schwarzenegger to reclaim support from Latino voters:

The Republican governor enjoyed unusually high support from Latinos in the 2003 recall election, but his popularity among that group plummeted after a series of miscues — praising the controversial Minutemen border patrollers and pursuing what many considered an elitist agenda last year. He also angered some Latino voters by vetoing bills that would grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

Without having seen any research, I would argue that it’s the praise for the Minutemen that really hurt Schwarzenegger with Latinos. Prior to that idiotic episode, I believe that Schwarzenegger had managed to avoid being painted by Latino voters with the same brush reserved for former Governor Pete Wilson. Wilson’s support for Prop 187 - complete with almost Willie Hortonesque TV commercials - sealed his fate as Latinos’ perfect example of Republican racism in California. No top of the ticket Republican had managed to overcome that perception until Schwarzenegger. But touting the Minutemen put Arnold in the same hole as Wilson.

The moral of this post isn’t to say that Schwarzenegger can’t get out of this hole. Instead, the moral is to get Democratic strategists to consider asking the right question when assessing the political impact of a particular immigration policy on Latino voters. The right question is not whether a Latino voter agrees or disagrees with a particular policy - the policy’s salience will likely be low and the results mixed. Instead, the question that would actually provide useful information is whether the Latino voter views the policy - or the candidate - as racist. If that standard is not met, then the issue of illegal immigration is not going to have much of an effect on a Latino’s vote.

[Update (7-13-06):] Roger Salazar hits Schwarzenegger on the Minutemen in the Capitol Morning Report:

After getting caught sneaking in the backdoor of the White House this week it will be good fun watching Team Arnold hide out next week when Jim Gilchrist, Founder of the Minuteman Project, appears before the Sacramento Press Corps. Just last year Arnold was praising Jim and his merry band of vigilantes: John and Ken Radio Show (4-28-05) Q: “Are you happy with what the Minuteman Project has done?” AS: “I think they have done a terrific job, and, look, they have cut down the crossing of illegal immigrants by a huge percentage. So it only just shows that it works when you go and make an effort and when you work hard.” We would say that maybe this is the reason Team Arnold no longer wants the press corps to know when the Governator does right-wing talk radio - except he went and did it again! [Tuesday], Schwarzenegger renewed his support for the civilian Minuteman border patrols at a campaign stop to showcase his Latino supporters in a Mexican restaurant in Lynwood. “I support any time that a civilian wants to go and do the job that law enforcement cannot do,” Schwarzenegger said in response to a question. “I’m for that.” (Los Angeles Times, July 12, 2006) Nice. I’m not sure praising an armed group of border “vigilantes” - as Pres. Bush has characterized them - is the best way to ensure support amongst a group of Latino supporters, even if it is a fake group. (Oh, and I’m sure law enforcement will appreciate Arnold letting them know they aren’t up to the job, either on the border or in his own ritzy neighborhood.) It’s these kinds of comments from El Governador that have turned off Latino voters statewide, including some high ranking Latinos from his own party…

Smart Latino politics on Salazar’s part.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 12th, 2006 at 11:24 am and is filed under Blog, Immigration Issue, Latino Vote. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.