Arizona politics heated up this summer as every new immigration-related development gave people on both sides of the issue something to scream and holler about.
Because of the intense passions that Senate Bill 1070 incited and the often deeply personal issue that illegal immigration is for Arizonans, it seemed to go without saying that we would see an increased voter turnout come November, particularly by Latinos, a community that historically has had low voter turnout.
But stubborn poll numbers tell a different story. According to one released Tuesday from the Pew Hispanic Center, only 51 percent of Latino voters say they are absolutely committed to voting this year, compared with 70 percent of all voters.
For Democrats and SB 1070 opponents in Arizona, this is terrible news. The poll found that 65 percent of Latinos support Dems, while only 22 percent favor the GOP — but even despite SB 1070, they aren’t planning to vote.
Worse, this news, which hit the front page of the New York Times Tuesday under the unsettling headline of “Latino vote turnout likely to lag, poll says,” is coming at a time when the ultraconservative Tea Party movement is peaking with strength in numbers, organization and, of course, seething anger.
These government-hating political pugilists are going to vote come November, you can be sure of that — and for Republicans.
In a poll conducted by Newsweek, 23 percent of voters describe themselves as “angry” and of those, 73 percent are supportive of Republicans.
Newsweek went as far to dub 2010 as the year of the “mad as hell” voter, in reference to not only Howard Beele’s on-camera rant in “Network” but also Rick Santelli’s outburst on CNBC in February 2009 that many credit as the flame that sparked the Tea Party’s angry and vocal resentment.
The Tea Party is angry, fired up and ready to vote.
So why aren’t Latinos?
At least in Arizona, you’d think an immigration law so racially charged that it prompted the federal government to sue the state would get Latinos to at least show up on Election Day.
Instead, the opposite is true. While Latinos have always had a lower voter turnout than whites, the Pew Hispanic Center poll shows that the current gap is wider than it was during the last midterm election.
According to the Times, these numbers “suggest that the raging debate over Arizona’s law and the lack of Congressional action on immigration overhaul may have turned off many Latinos.”
Part of the blame lies with the major candidates running for office in Arizona and each political party’s ability to capture anger and use it for their own good. Gov. Jan Brewer, frozen in a 13-second deer-in-the-headlights pose or not, is good at cultivating fear and anger. Terry Goddard, educated, cerebral, and polished, is not. He’s standoffish at times and is set for an Al Gore-inspired defeat.
But this is the era of American politics we live in. It’s an era that can see our president deftly handle an environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico but be criticized for not displaying enough overt anger toward BP and its glib executives.
Certainly, the media has some part to play in this as well. The Tea Party, after all, has an entire network devoted to ratcheting up the anti-Obama vitriol in Fox News. The cable-news network has so thoroughly committed itself to helping the GOP win that it “has gone from merely supporting Republican candidates to anointing them,” Paul Krugman wrote earlier this week in a New York Times blog.
Latinos, conversely, don’t even have a big-name anchor to call their own anymore. Rick Sanchez, the de facto Latino face of news in mainstream media, was fired from CNN last week for his frustratingly dumb comments about Jon Stewart. With little to no representation in the media, maybe Latinos are lacking a societal support beam necessary to participate in the elective process.
Yet efforts are being made, and polls do not set election outcomes in stone. Organizations such as Mi Familia Vota and the National Council of La Raza have been out in full force to register Latinos and are confident that, when it’s all said and done, the immigration issue will spur Arizona Latinos to vote in high numbers.
La Raza began a new ad campaign Wednesday called “Vote for Respect” which is a black-and-white video showing people firmly stating “I will be counted” and “I believe in the promise of America.”
It has a very “Yes We Can” feel to it, but the politics of hope came and went with Obama’s election in 2008. The rhetoric of 2010 has been one of anger so far. Here’s hoping something changes between now and Nov. 2.
Get it out of your system at dustin.volz@asu.edu
