Also In This Issue Cover Story: Battlefield Now · California Primary: The Golden Prize · Graphic: Democratic Scorecard · Graphic: Republican Scorecard

By Richard E. Cohen, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008

In the hand-to-hand combat for the Democratic presidential nomination, Rep. Linda Sanchez of Los Angeles is an instructive -- and potentially telling -- recruit. As a Latina, her support for Barack Obama cuts against both racial and gender stereotypes.

Sanchez is even bucking her older sister, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, who has served longer in the House and announced her support for Hillary Rodham Clinton on the same day, January 18, that Linda endorsed Obama. "That's best explained because Bill Clinton helped [Loretta] to get elected in 1996. I have no debt to repay," the younger, more liberal sister said.

"I came to Washington to make change," Linda Sanchez, 39, continued during an interview in her Capitol Hill office. "A [presidential] candidate who wants to change the culture is fundamental to me. For Hillary to call for change doesn't resonate for me. She is the establishment candidate.... Once Latinos know Obama's life story, they will gravitate toward him."

A civil-rights attorney and organized-labor official in Southern California before being elected to Congress in 2002, Sanchez said that a defining moment in her endorsement decision came during the candidates' debate last October in Philadelphia when -- in contrast to Obama -- Clinton wavered and ultimately opposed driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. "He has the courage of his convictions on issues that impact the Hispanic community, while she took a different tack."

Like numerous other Latino elected officials and union leaders backing Obama, including Los Angeles County Federation of Labor head Maria Elena Durazo, Sanchez is challenging the mainstream view in her community. Numerous polls in California, as well as nationwide, show Clinton with at least a 2-to-1 advantage over Obama among Latino voters. A Los Angeles Times/CNN/Politico poll [PDF] of California voters on January 28 found Hispanics giving 59 percent of their support to Clinton and 27 percent to Obama. In a statewide Field poll [PDF] a week earlier, Clinton led Obama 59 percent to 19 percent among Latinos.

Obama's ability to pull off an upset in California and in other states with large Latino populations very likely hinges on whether supporters such as Sanchez find a way to reverse those trends by Tuesday. But other Latino leaders will be pushing just as hard to keep Clinton well ahead.

For Rep. Hilda Solis, the decision to endorse Clinton was easy. "I first met her in 1992, when she was campaigning with Bill in my district, and I was very impressed with her," said Solis, 50, who was first elected that year to the state Assembly and now holds a congressional seat a few miles north of Sanchez's district in the sprawling and heavily Hispanic suburbs east of Los Angeles.

"She is a strong supporter of children's health care, which is very important to Latinos. And she is not afraid to take on other issues important to the Latino community, including immigration reform, education, and the environment. She has done a lot of advocacy for the Latino community," Solis added.

Solis, who made campaign appearances for Clinton in Iowa and Nevada, conceded that "young people like [Obama's] presentation." But she voiced confidence that the Latino community will largely stick with Clinton. "She can withstand the scrutiny with her tough core values. You know her voting record and accomplishments, more than with Senator Obama." Among the other leading Latino Democrats in California who have endorsed Clinton are Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.

The Democrats' battle for the Latino vote is a fascinating fight at several levels: It showcases the emergence of the rapidly growing and diverse Latino community as a force in American politics, and it spotlights the battle for political influence within their community. Of course, the struggle is also a vivid reminder of the nation's long history of racial problems.

Obama's race makes the contest historic, notes Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif. "The dynamic is that we can have great comfort with Hillary Clinton, but we might also have somebody breaking barriers and demanding that we do the right thing," Becerra told National Journal. "Barack Obama is the underdog, but people see that he is real." A few days later, announcing his support for Obama, Becerra cited the Illinois senator's "great crossover appeal that spans parties and regions, and his unique ability to rally the American people behind a common purpose."

The competition for Latino votes is "healthy," Becerra added in the interview. "We have become critical elements in any campaign. More than in 1992, whoever becomes president this year will know far more about Latinos. We are now more than twice the share of the electorate" than when Bill Clinton won his first term. Becerra, 50, whose district is close to downtown Los Angeles, brings additional cachet as the most senior Hispanic on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's leadership team.

The Latino vote has indeed grown substantially. In 1996, the estimated 4.9 million Latino voters accounted for 4.7 percent of the national electorate, according to a handbook prepared by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, which relied on Census Bureau surveys. That total increased to 7.6 million (6 percent) in 2004, and Latino leaders foresee another huge jump this November.

"We project 9.3 million, as a floor," said Arturo Vargas, executive director of Los Angeles-based NALEO. "This is a conservative projection if trends continue.... Latino voters are very tuned in to the campaign debate. We are looking at a generation of politicized young Latinos, who are now in college."

The growth of the Latino voting bloc is especially noteworthy in California, where immigration issues are a perennial hot topic. Latino voters increased from 1.3 million in 1996 to 2.1 million in 2004 -- jumping from 11.7 percent of the state electorate to 16.3 percent, according to NALEO. An additional several hundred thousand Latinos will likely join the California electorate this year, at a time when overall population growth in the Golden State has cooled.

California won't be the only February 5 primary in which Latinos will play an important role. In New Jersey, Clinton participated in a boisterous campaign rally on January 23 in heavily Hispanic North Bergen, where several elected officials spoke on her behalf. "We, as Hispanics, must remember that there's a big difference between what you say and what you do," Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., told the crowd in Spanish.

Freshman Rep. Albio Sires, D-N.J., who helped to organize the packed event, which drew perhaps 2,000 people, later said that Clinton "speaks to the issues important to the Latino community ... and has been on those issues before the other candidates." He predicts that she will "win big" in the state's primary. "Our organization is working on turnout," he said.

In Nevada, the only state with a large Hispanic population that has officially participated in the Democratic nominating process so far, Clinton defeated Obama on January 19, 51 percent to 45 percent. According to the news media entrance poll, she led among Hispanics, 64 percent to 26 percent, despite the Culinary Workers Union's endorsement of Obama.

Latinos will also be a significant portion of the February 5 electorate in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York. These contests will provide "an historic opportunity" for Latinos, NALEO wrote in a report last year. After securing the support of Sen. Edward Kennedy, Obama's campaign scheduled appearances for the senator from Massachusetts in Hispanic communities, where the Kennedy family has long been popular.

Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, sounded optimistic about the Latino vote during a conference call on January 29: "A lot of this is education; [Latinos] are not as familiar with Senator Obama as they are with Senator Clinton. So we have to do all we can to make sure they learn about him, his accomplishments, his values."

A usually unspoken aspect of the Democratic campaign's dynamic, especially in urban areas, is the tension between African-American and Hispanic voters. So-called black-versus-brown conflicts have been especially pronounced in recent years in election and redistricting clashes in Los Angeles, where blacks were once the dominant racial minority but have been losing population and clout to Latinos for two decades.

This underlying tension has led many observers to speculate that the Clinton-Obama contest could exacerbate racial problems within the Democratic coalition, making it more difficult for the eventual nominee to unify the party. "The hidden factor in that campaign is race. The long-standing battle of the minorities now is bubbling over," said a veteran California Republican political insider. "It will be hard for a Democrat to win the White House without strong support from blacks and Latinos."

But most Democrats voice confidence that their party will be strong and united heading into the general election -- not least because of the hard line that many prominent Republicans have taken against creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Bush strategist Karl Rove saw Latinos as crucial to the GOP's long-term success. In 2000, candidate Bush received 35 percent of the Latino vote. In 2004, that number rose to at least 40 percent. Since then, though, in Becerra's view, the Rove strategy has "unraveled because of Brutuses in the Republican Party who have driven out Latinos."

The refusal of Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration reform package that included a path to citizenship "will hurt [Republicans] in California, especially with people who want to take the migrants out of the shadows," Solis said. However, she said that many older, conservative Latinos remain in play for Republicans -- especially if Sen. John McCain of Arizona is the GOP presidential nominee. "If the economy worsens, you will see changes in how Republicans address issues" affecting Latinos, Solis added.

Although Bush has called repeatedly for major immigration reform, Sanchez said that he and Rove could have done more to secure Latino support. "If [Bush] was sincere, [Congress] would have done it. The result now is that Latinos are far more amenable to voting for Democrats."

National Democratic strategists are well aware of the political implications of the Latino vote and the immigration debate. In its "Hispanics Rising" report in September 2007, the Washington-based NDN (formerly known as the New Democrat Network) wrote that the rapid expansion of the Hispanic vote could determine who will be elected president in 2008. In last year's Senate debate on immigration, "national Republicans and their allies used extraordinary language and images to describe Hispanic immigrants, and the result has been a reversal of GOP gains in this community, the fastest-growing part of the American electorate," NDN President Simon Rosenberg wrote.

Although Republicans concede that they are unlikely this year to duplicate the support that Bush received, some argue that McCain -- who is from a border state and has been a leading moderate on immigration -- could prove attractive to Latinos, especially if the Democratic nominating contest further enflames racial tension. The California GOP source voiced hope that the departure of congressional immigrant-bashers -- including the upcoming retirement of Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado and the 2006 defeat of Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona -- will send a message to other GOP lawmakers that "some went too far." In addition, he noted that Bush's political success resulted, in part, from the fact that Latino Texans are generally not as liberal as Latino Californians.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, has a unique perspective on the bipartisan battle for Latino votes. Previously a Democratic state legislator, his endorsement of Bush in 2000 and his appointment in 2001 as Texas secretary of State by Gov. Rick Perry -- Bush's GOP successor -- led to his virtual ostracism by Texas Democrats. Nevertheless, he was elected to Congress in 2004.

The key to Democratic success among Latinos, Cuellar says, is to "reach out to independent voters" by being moderate. He endorsed Sen. Clinton in early 2007 because she has pursued that strategy, and he has welcomed both of the Clintons in separate visits to his district.

Should the Democratic presidential race remain hotly contested until Texas votes on March 4, Cuellar predicts that Clinton will triumph because of her strength among Latinos, who could be as much as 40 percent of the Democratic primary electorate. "There is a personal connection with Clinton, especially for older Hispanics," he said.

So if the huge number of Latinos voting on February 5 don't give Clinton or Obama a lock on the Democratic presidential nomination, the ones voting in Texas a month later just might.