The 'Bola' Is In McCain's Court

When they come to the barrios to seek the Hispanic vote, Democratic Party leaders tell us anything we want to hear, especially about their plans to fix our broken immigration system and to grant some kind of amnesty to the 12 million illegal immigrants already living here.

But when they address a national audience, as they did from their convention in Denver last week, you don't hear anything that resembles their barrio speeches.

In fact, from listening to the main speakers at the Democratic National Convention, you wouldn't know this country has an immigration/national security crisis or that the American people consider immigration reform/enforcement to be one of the most important issues of our time.

On the Spanish-language TV networks, we saw interviews with Latino Democrats at the convention, and of course, they were speaking as if their party had solutions to all of our problems. Some will tell you that the Democratic Party platform -- which few Americans read -- commits the party to overhauling the nation's immigration laws and placing illegal immigrants on a path to legalization. But you have to wonder why none of their Spanish-language TV rhetoric or platform commitments came out of the speeches delivered from the main convention podium.

It's clearly a sign that once again, the Latino vote is being taken for granted by the Democratic Party. The polls say that Sen. Barack Obama leads Sen. John McCain by a 3-1 margin among Latino voters, and Democrats obviously feel they can sit back and say absolutely "nada." If they can win the Hispanic vote by default, why risk alienating some xenophobic Americans who might vote for Obama?

Yet that was the convention where many Latinos expected to hear strong condemnations of the immigrant-bashing measures and anti-Hispanic rhetoric of many Republican lawmakers during the past few years. That was the place and time for Democrats, especially Obama, to (SET ITAL) earn (END ITAL) respect from Latinos.

Instead, what Latinos got was disrespect. They are America's largest minority, but they were treated as if they don't exist.

Here's a simple Internet research exercise: Download the texts of the most important prime time speeches -- including those by Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Sen. Joe Biden or any of the other keynote speakers. Then, within each of those transcripts, search for a few keywords. Try "Hispanic" or "Latino" or "immigration" or "Latin America." Or try the name of the Latin American countries that have been in the news lately: Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba, etc. You will be surprised by the almost absolute absence of any of the issues that are uniquely of interest to Latinos.

You will find that even when the words "immigrants" or "immigration" were used, in speeches by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, it was done very disingenuously -- by simultaneously trying to appeal to both sides of the immigration debate. READ MORE

By Miguel Perez
The Post Chronicle