Let me draw your attention to my previous post (see below), in which I said that pandering to Hispanic voters was no more egregious than what other has been done for other groups for decades. And then a few days later, McCain picks Palin to be his running mate, in what is surely one of the most obvious ploys to pick up a voting block (ie, pissed-off women) in modern history. So my point stands.
All this leads to a natural question that has, no doubt, been vexing Americans of all creeds and beliefs for lo these many weeks: Who will receive the Hispanic Fanatic’s endorsement for president?
Yes, the media is breathless with anticipation. After all, the highly coveted Latino vote apparently depends on which Hispanics come out swinging for the candidate of their choice.
Obama has picked up the Latino seal of approval of everyone from Bill Richardson to J. Lo. Meanwhile, Daddy Yankee made waves recently by endorsing McCain, thus becoming the first Republican Latino rapper… which he will probably remain for all time.
Daddy Yankee is getting a lot of, shall we say, negative feedback for his choice. The dreaded “sell-out” label has been thrown his way, and his very status as an authentic Latino has been called into question.
This is beyond sad. It’s insulting and counterproductive.
While I certainly don’t share Daddy Yankee’s enthusiasm for the establishment, his political leanings don’t cancel out his status as Hispanic. One would think that Latinos would learn to avoid this type of baiting after seeing African Americans tear themselves apart over whether black Republicans were Uncle Toms or not. All that debate did was entrench people further into their ideological trenches and fray bonds among whole communities.
The stats show that Hispanics tend to vote Democratic, but this is no longer the iron-clad lock that it used to be. Even Latino liberals should view this development as a good thing. At some point, Democrats will stop assuming they have this segment of the population wrapped up, and they will address us more directly. It’s already happening in this election (hence the charge of pandering).
Of course, let me point out that Obama has picked up at least one more significant Latino endorsement. The Vatosaurus is all for him:
