Hispanic Primary Day, Feb. 5, 2008

Hispanics, for the first time, could have a decisive vote in who wins the Democratic presidential nomination.

On Super Tuesday, February 5, 2008, California and New York, two of the largest delegate-giving states, along with Illinois and Arizona, go to the polls. In 2004, Hispanics accounted for 16 percent of the vote in the California primary, 11 percent in New York, 17 percent in Arizona. (Florida, with its large and politically active Cuban voting bloc, will vote on January 29th.)

Results from Nevada give a hint of what might be expected in the demographically similar state of California. Despite the endorsement of Mr. Obama by the state's largest union, Culinary Workers, many of the union's predominately Hispanic members told pollsters that irregardless of the union's endorsement, they would be voting for Hillary Clinton.

The issue of race, undoubtedly, played a critical factor in that vote.

“Many Latinos are not ready for a person of color,” Natasha Carrillo, a resident of East Los Angeles who organizes citizenship drives, told The New York Times. “I don’t think many Latinos will vote for Obama.”

While younger voters in general favor Mr. Obama, older Hispanics are expected to cast their lot en masse with Hillary Clinton. Speaking with The Times, thirty year old Javier Perez, a former marine, concurred with the assessment. Older Hispanics like his grandmother are unlikely to support an African-American, he told the paper. “Unfortunately,” he said, "I do think race will play a part in her decision.”

A recent poll the ethnic media consortium New America Media found much mistrust and fear among blacks and Latinos toward each other. In the poll, Earl Ofari Hutchinson of New America Media writes, “a slight majority of blacks finger pointed Latinos for taking jobs from blacks and eroding their political power. A near majority of Latinos finger-pointed blacks as crime prone and were fearful of them. A majority of Latinos said that they preferred to do business with whites. Few Latinos they preferred to do business with blacks."

One San Francisco-based group, Vote Hope 2008, has begun a novel approach to bridging the black-Hispanic divide. Vote Hope 2008, backing Mr. Obama, has created a series of Spanish and English language mini-dramas modeled on the popular telenovela drama form to address the animosity and fear toward blacks shared among some Latinos. The mini-novelas, which follow "the journey of the Ortiz family and their burgeoning support for Presidential candidate Barack Obama," are remarkably persuasive. But the challenge facing Vote Hope is in promoting viewership for the innovative campaign. Getting airtime for the three-part series, which run around 4 minutes each, would be prohibitively expensive, even if run only on Spanish language networks. (And with requirements for equal time, it would be hard to find a slot in regular programming for that long a segment.) Distribution will undoubtedly be limited to self-selecting viewers of YouTube, and those already drawn to the camp. An unresolved issue for the Obama camp indeed.