There's an episode in Hillary Clinton's career that you don't hear much about: The Texas years. Or perhaps, the Texas months, when she and Bill tried to salvage George McGovern's Texas presidential campaign. But on a conference call to discuss her Latino outreach strategy, it was all about the "long history of relationships" with prominent "Tejano" politicians dating back 36 years which will allow her to recreate on March 4 her success in California last Tuesday, a day Senator Robert Menendez suggested should have been called "Super Martes." (Or perhaps, "Super Duper Martes.")
Menendez and the campaign's Maria Echaveste [Editors' Note: Echaveste is a Prospect board member] made two more substantive points:
First, that the Clinton campaign "really understands the diversity of the Latino community." Clinton recognized that it is "both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking," and bragged about running an ad in California in English featuring Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and addressed to second- and third-generation Mexican-Americans who don't speak Spanish.
Obama, they argue, "over-emphasized immigration," and his difference with Clinton on the issue of drivers' licenses for undocumented workers. Bread and butter economic issues, and health insurance in particular, are more important issues for Latinos than immigration.
Menendez was more specific, arguing that when Republicans are attacking on immigration, and particularly when they use phrases like "those people," Latinos hear it as an attack on all of them, and it creates a sense of solidarity around that issue. But when the Republicans aren't on the attack -- and the emergence of John McCain as the front-runner brings the wave of anti-immigrant politics of 2007 effectively to an end -- economic issues, health care and the war reemerge. And Latinos become less of a distinct group.
This seems entirely persuasive and important. Obama, like John Kerry, is approaching Latinos as an interest/identity group with its own issues and language; Clinton recognizes it as a broad category ranging from recent immigrants to 9th-generation U.S. citizens. For all the emphasis on diversity, though, Menendez and Echaveste evaded questions about why Clinton did less well in some heavily Latino states, like New Mexico and Colorado.
The second argument, which reeks of Mark Penn, is that there are two voting blocs that were key to Bush's reelection in 2004 and to the next general election: Hispanics and "women concerned about national security," and that against McCain, Clinton would recapture both groups. The problem with that argument is that it relies on the deeply contested assertion that Bush won "more than 40%" of the Hispanic vote in 2004. That claim originated with an error in an exit poll, and the reality might be anywhere from 31% to the low 40s, with the consensus around 39%, which is not out of line with Bush's gains among all groups.
Few of the reporters on the call were interested in talking about Latino outreach, however, and asked instead about the campaign's money problems, which neither Menendez or Echaveste could answer. (Campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle left the call quickly.) But according to the campaign staffer who moderated the call, rumors that senior staffers are going without pay are not true.
-- Mark Schmit
