State of the Union: Which Obama Should Latinos Believe?
By Victor Landa, NewsTaco
The question for U.S. Latinos after the President’s State of the Union address is, Which Obama do you want to believe?
There’s the President Obama that said the things that many Latinos wanted to hear; an Obama reminiscent of the young Senator from Illinois who in 2008 captured the imagination of a nation, who saw the potential of the middle class, championed education and job creation.
And there’s the President Obama who for several years strung Latinos along on the immigration issue, making and breaking promises, waiting for the best political moment to act.
Many Latinos say they need the first one, but are wary of the second. That’s the task for Obama, six years into his presidency: how do you add renewed hope to a known track record?
I think Obama played it well. He seems to be well attuned to the political landscape; aware that Republicans have begun to take a populist stance, he claimed the middle class. He minted the term “middle class economics,” to counter the established GOP “trickle down” mantra.
The middle class is now the obvious battle ground. With the economy starting to churn and grow, and middle America yet to feel the full benefits, Obama took the State of the Union as an opportunity to stake his claim and challenge the GOP to meet him there. He sounded conciliatory, urging his opposition to “do what Americans want us to do,” deftly serving the ball to the other side of the court where any answer short of meeting him half-way will sound obtuse.
For Latinos, specifically, he hit the right spots: free community college, job growth, minimum wage hike, providing childcare, expanded healthcare. I found it striking that he only mentioned immigration and Cuba in passing – the two topics that the media has tagged as strong Latino issues. There was no reason to emphasize with words what has already been done by executive orders.
The onus is now on the Republican congress that has the difficult work of challenging the President as champions of the middle class, while adamantly opposing a tax hike for the wealthiest Americans. It’s the chess game that this President has played before, acting today with three future moves in mind. He set-up his last two years in office, and readied the baton for the presidential campaign to come.
The problem for Obama, when it comes to Latinos, is the memory of some of his past moves. And the problem for Republicans, when it comes to Obama, is to not sound petty when their only answer to his conciliatory tone is to say they don’t trust him.
My bet is that his hopeful, optimistic tone will strike a positive chord among Latinos; not because of Obama, but because of the Latino sense of possibility, because of the transformational ethos that drives the Latino community. This is the one thing that the GOP has yet to understand: U.S. Latinos are a transforming element, and when you speak of hope and possibility from a Latino point of view, the words cease to be ephemeral. When you oppose hope and block possibility, the words become real.
And then you find yourself where our national politics now sits – the President has proposed a plan that will surely be squashed in Congress. And Congress will propose bills that will surely be vetoed by the President. More of the same.
With these things the jury is always out.
[Photo courtesy of whitehouse.gov]
