Mitt Romney has Conceded the Latino Vote

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

He hasn’t so much as said it, in so many words, but stitch together what Mitt Romney has said and done in the past few days regarding Latinos and the Latino vote and you get the feeling that  he’s pulled his plow and gone to till for votes in other fields.

Oh he did a fine enough job on Univision last night.  The Spanish language TV Presidential forum was recorded in Miami, which is as close to a Latino home court as Romney has. There were Romney! Romeny! chants and it was, overall, a friendly crowd in the audience, but what matters is how his message will resonate among the Latino voters across the nation.

On that score Romney veered left and presented the more moderate version of himself, circa 2004. He promised immigration reform (Latinos have heard that before…); he promised there would be no mass deportations (a logistical nightmare…); and he promised to create jobs (and a chicken in every pot, you know how that goes…). For Latinos, though, it’s not what Romney said at Univison, it’s what he’s been saying on his campaign that’s been raising eyebrows and widening the spread between him and President Obama in the favorability polls.

The last bomb was the most decisive. It came in the infamous secret donor meeting recording – the one where he references the freeloading 47% and said they weren’t his concern. Granted, we was talking about the 47%’s vote, not their well being, directly; but it just sounded petulant, directly. In that same riff he mentioned that his campaign would be better off if he were Mexican.

And there you go, Latino vote conceded to Obama.

When I first heard the remark I laughed. What a clown. It’s probably true, I thought. But I wasn’t insulted, angered or put off. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized what he was saying. He’s not going to get the 47%, he’s not going to get the Latinos. Maybe if he were Mexican, maybe if his dad had been born a Mexican, and not merely born in Mexico to American parents, his campaign would be doing better… But he’s not, and his campaign isn’t doing better. That my friends, is a concession.

Now here’s the flip side to that reality: if he’s conceded Latinos in his campaign and election, how would Latinos fare in his administration? The GOP will be quick to point to the number of Latino Republicans elected to high office across the country. But how many Latinos have been appointed to high positions in the Romney campaign? I think that’ll be a better indication of where his intentions are leading him. (To be fair, and factual, the Obama campaign isn’t doing much better in the Latinos-in-high-positions regard.)

So whether Romney went on Univision to tout his appeal to the 100% or not, his approval among Latinos is rotting in the root cellar, and he knows that. If only he were Mexican…