VivirLatino

McCain's Got the Latino Problem Now

13:44 H | Topics: US Presidential Race 2008

Turns out that all that hype about Latinos not voting for a black candidate, specifically Barack Obama, is just that, hype.

A new Gallup Poll summary of surveys taken in May shows Obama winning 62% of Latino registered voters nationwide, compared with just 29% for McCain. Others have found a wide gap as well. The pro-Democratic group Democracy Corps compiled surveys from March through May that showed Obama with a 19-point lead among Latinos. And a Times poll published last month showed Obama leading McCain among California Latinos by 14 points.
Republicans say McCain's numbers among Latinos at the moment are disappointing -- far below the goals set by a campaign that has long believed McCain could challenge the traditional Democratic dominance of the Latino electorate.

and yet the claim that Latinos have a hard time pulling the lever for a black man continue, especially from Latinos outside the U.S. Over the weekend I was watching Peruano Jaime Bayly on his television show on Mega TV (which leans right to begin with, and Bayly said that Latinos have a problem with diversity. I threw my hands up in exasperation. It's not that Latinos don't have race issues. Hell yeah we do. But to constantly play divide and conquer politics with blacks and Latinos shifts the focus away from just how bad McCain would be for Latinos across the issues, but it also negates the existence of Latinos who also identify with being black.

It just gets tiring repeating the same thing, really.

Via / Our Hispanic Voices

Image Via / Newsday

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