Latino Voters Emerge as Political Wild Card

I don’t know if it’s the need to prop legs under the Latino vote story, or that a week after the election there are fewer ways to package it, but this caught my eye over the week end.

A piece in Politico.com has referred to the Latino electorate as a “wild card.” Interesting choice of words; the writers, Ben Smith and Carrie Budoff Brown, tossed out the trump card metaphor and went with the wild.  The logic is a projection, based on mid-term results. Latinos, they say, are up for grabs in 2012 because their support for democrats is contingent on immigration reform. Also, because Latinos, according to Politico.com, vote for the tribe:

“An election eve poll conducted by Latino Decisions, a Hispanic polling firm, found Hispanics weren’t nearly as motivated to vote Democratic as they were to show solidarity with the Latino community. Forty-seven percent of Latinos in eight key states told the pollsters they voted to ‘represent and support’ Hispanics, 31 percent to support Democrats and 12 percent to back Republicans.”

The key for Pres. Obama, apparently, is for him to press the immigration reform issue during the coming lame duck session of congress. Again Politico.com: “But it would be a mistake for Democrats to assume that the Latino vote is necessarily going to be strong on them for 2012,” (California-based Democratic pollster David) Binder said. “If the Democrats expect Latino voters to come out in big numbers in 2012, they need to start moving on this issue.”

Isn’t that more of a dice-roll than a wild card?

The idea assumes that Pres. Obama would wager what political capitol he has on immigration in the coming weeks; that he needs to gain the advantage of initiative and force the republicans to react. Or something like that. The immigration reform debate would then drag for another two years and come election day 2012 (a few weeks before the world is set to end) Latinos will see the party’s true colors vis-a-vis immigration and cast their tribal vote accordingly.

Nice, concise, easy politics. The problem, though, is that it assumes that Latino voters are hidden somewhere in a shuffled deck of cards, not sitting at the table holding a trump and a hand full of chips.

I’ll place my bet on the latter.