Why Jeb in Spanish wasn’t too different from Trump in English
By Victor Landa, NewsTaco
I’ll give credit to Jeb Bush for doing the hard thing. He went on Spanish Television to talk to Latinos about why he’d be a good choice for president of the United States. It’s a hard thing by default, because if it were an easy thing all the other presidential candidates would have already done it. But they haven’t.
[pullquote]For a presidential candidate, especially one from the GOP, to talk directly to Latinos is a lot like a high-wire act.[/pullquote]For a presidential candidate, especially one from the GOP, to talk directly to Latinos is a lot like a high-wire act, a fine line to tread between appealing to a disgruntled group of voters while at the same time not enraging the partisan base that you’ll need to move your campaign forward. Add to that the feat of doing it in Spanish – it’s like walking the wire with a blindfold over your eyes. I’ll admit to watching with the perverse expectation of seeing him slip.
But he didn’t.
There were several other things he didn’t do, and that’s why Latino viewers may have been underwhelmed. Bush’s sins of omission won’t be apparent to non-Latino political types – they tend to count points on interviews like judges count jabs in a boxing match. I think it has to do with the penchant we have for the extroverted leader. We tend to like politicians who say things with authority and carry themselves as if they have something important to do. Case in point, Donald Trump.
[tweet_dis]Trump is the only presidential candidate who refers to himself in the third person. [/tweet_dis]”The Hispanics love Trump,” he said in Laredo, Texas, the most Latino city in the country. Spoken like a true extrovert – no need to say why or how, just a confident statement that stands on the truth of its own echo. Trump would probably say same the same thing to José Diaz-Balart on Telemundo, he’s that confident – pathologically so, some may say. [pullquote]When you whittle it down, he wasn’t talking to Latinos. He was talking at them, looking over his shoulder. [/pullquote]Jeb is a soft-sell
Jeb, on the other hand is more of a soft-sell, but it’s a sell just the same. Jeb went on Telemundo to tell Latinos … whatever he thought he needed to tell them, in Spanish, without inciting the tribe that’s taken over his party to charge at him with torches and pitchforks. And that’s the problem. When you whittle it down, he wasn’t talking to Latinos. He was talking at them, looking over his shoulder.
He looked calm, his Spanish was decent enough. As Taquista Prentiss Riddle said in our Facebook discussion:
Just commenting on his Spanish, not his (yuk) politics: not bad, could be better. He needs to work on his verb tenses (he keeps using the present when his meaning calls for the imperative or the subjunctive) and his adverbs (he says “legal” when he means “legalmente”). But he’s well past the “uno mas cerveza porr favorr” stage of the typical gringo politician.
But no Latino voter is going to favor him because he said things en español. Latinos will vote for a candidate for the same reason every other voter does: because of what the candidate proposes, because of the candidate’s project for the country. [tweet_dis] The mistake that politicians make with the Latino community is that they reduce their projects and proposals to an infomercial schtick[/tweet_dis]: “Here’s why you should buy into what I’m saying. But wait! There’s more.”
[pullquote]… take the lead in changing the perception of Latinos among your party’s partisans.[/pullquote]What the candidates need to know
Here’s what’ll work with Latino voters: listen to what they’re saying, understand what they mean, and invite them to bring their ideas to the project you propose. You don’t have to do it in Spanish. Here’s a hint: take the lead in changing the perception of Latinos among your party’s partisans.
I’ll give Jeb credit for being the first through the wall. It’s always the first one that catches all the muck. Aside from that, there was nothing new in what Jeb said. And for that he wasn’t much different from Trump – except maybe the over-the-top third-person bit.
[Photo courtesy of Telemundo]
