Rahm Emanuel And The Blunder Of Ignoring Latino Voters

Rahm Emanuel was out yesterday, now he’s in, but the truth is he’s only half got it.

Although yesterday a Chicago appellate court ruled that Emanuel did not meet Chicago’s residency requirement to run for mayor, now the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that his name appear on the ballot pending their decision of his appeal. In other words, he pulled a few strings and will get what he wants how he wants it — maybe.

Emanuel has what I would call an incredibly reckless attitude when it comes to Latino voters. One insider-ey person told me that he summed up his position privately like this: Latinos don’t vote and they don’t donate. The proof is in the pudding. As I’ve written before, Emanuel was the spokesperson for putting immigration reform on the back burner (President Barack Obama’s anticipated second term in office), even though he has a Spanish language website, he just came out in favor of the DREAM Act after the fact and now that it doesn’t matter. None of this makes any sense.

Chicago is a big Latino town. There are two Latinos on the mayoral ballot, too. Emanuel is going to have to convince a good number of Latinos to vote for him if he wants to win. Victor Landa wrote this morning that it will be impossible for Obama to be reelected without Latinos — what makes Emanuel think this rule doesn’t apply to him? Obama has 58 votes less than he had in 2008, needs 270 to win reelection in 2012 and so without winning Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, he may not be able to pull it off.

I’ve only been to Chicago once — loved it! — and so the only reason I keep writing about Emanuel is because he makes himself an easy symbol. His attitude, his strategy and his actions towards Latino voters are generalizable certainly to most Democratic politicians, but to Republican ones as well. There’s no substance there, it’s all fluffy talk and only when the cameras are on. In all honesty, Emanuel is probably going to win this election — but what about the next one?

Ten years ago 17% of those under the age of 20 were Latino, the most recent Census shows that up to 25% of the U.S.’s population under 20 is Latino. Precisely, that means that every year about 500,000 U.S. citizens who are Latino turn 18 — which means a whole lot of people set to hit voting age soon — got it?