The Xenophobes and Fundies are a huge hunk of the Republican party. They both hate McCain. When the fundies had their conclave earlier in the year, John  McCain was the lowest on their list, the lowest, despite all his ass kissing of Jerry Falwell. And remember the cry of the Xenophobes, "No Amnesty!!"

with Obama in a GE.  If he had accomplishments or something to rest on, but fancy rhetoric and a intereting bio are not enough.

So this is argument against any generic black candidate...even if they met the standards of Paul Krugman.

The potential Latino problem, combined with the dramatic contrast in age and experience, is not good.

I'm not sure how well Hillary will do with Latinos either after her inability to answer the question about driver's licenses. Nothing else quite says "I'll sell you out at the first opportunity" like that exhibition in waffling did.

Whatever. I hate this country.

so your argument is...don't vote for Obama because Latinos are racist?

Wow.

I assume this comment will be deleted moments after I post it...but at any rate...

Jerome Armstrong is pathetic. Latinos will not vote against Obama because he's black. This is the most pathetic attempt to discredit Obama that I've read yet.

I see all the regular Obama spammers are prepared to have a substantive debate about Jerome's latest diary.

Looking beyond race, I'll say it again.

If McCain is really THIS strong, there's something to be said about the so called anti-war majority in this country.

If we were truly an anti-war country, or the war was really that big of an issue, McCain would be getting killed in GE matchups against anyone.

Another bullshit "electability" argument and a bullshit "we can't nominate a racial minority or we'll lose votes" argument all rolled into one!!!!

God I love presidential primaries...

Oh, and the added pleasure of the argument being about a man the Republicans will NEVER nominate.  Good luck getting through SC John McCain!

On immigration, positions are:

Obama is open border with Corporate cheap labor lobby,  and McCain is Corporate cheap labor lobby.  Clinton is corporate cheap labor lobby.  The comprehensive immigration bills, which is what both push for, were written by the US Chamber of Commerce plus Compete America (tech lobbyists).

So, I think attributing these polls to whether someone is open border, corporate cheap labor lobby or not is pretty inaccurate to say the least.  It probably has more to do with McCain being a Senator in the next state over than anything, he's more well known.

Look at that, Huckabee is a 120 day window to plain get out of the country for all illegals, period, and Romney is about the same yet they are polling higher.  So trying to attribute these polling results to illegal/corporate cheap labor lobby/guest worker positions is spurious in the least.

I guess I just fundamentally disagree with a poll driven approach to selecting a President or even a policy. Who cares what the polls say this week? If Obama becomes the democratic candidate there will be a campaign and Obama together with other groups will work to win over hispanics. Thats a natural part of the process. All candidates have weaker or stronger areas and there are things they have to address. To say that because Obama is polling poorly with hispanics- and to even suggest that McCain will win- that therefore Obama is bad choice. That seems like a stretch. Lastly, I would never pick a candidate because of who the other party picks. If we reduce ourselves to this type of thinking we're no better than these pollsters we are always criticizing.

For me, this is another justification for Obama's nomination.  If the Hispanic/African American divide is real, and I have no doubt that it is, then it's a real problem for the progressive community for this country at large... a problem that needs to be confronted and addressed, not simply ignored.  It's a big challenge for anyone, but Obama has both the will and the ability to start us down that long and bumpy road.  We shouldn't simply surrender in the face of adversity so unjust.

Does anyone recall the racial tensions undergirding the special election in Los Angeles last summer?  

When you say Latino, it seems here that the focus is on the Mexican American vote, because many Latinos, have African roots.  Going on the sentiment of where Latinos of Mexican descent are concentrated, do they really impact Obama in the GE.  I mean will CA-where the electoral votes matter and where there are a lot of Latinos go in the Repub column if Obama is the candidate?  Texas, another heavily Latino state, is surely going to remain red, and even if NM goes red, how many electoral vote  would we lose out on?  I certainly don't disagree that Latinos may have this prejudice against African Americans (Obama), but I don't think he loses the election because the Latinos didn't vote for him.  I would be more concerned about how Obama matches up against McCain in states like Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania,  which are what I consider swing states and crucial to a Dem victory.  

BDM and wahoopaul your both wrong.  Latinos do have a common racist slant toward blacks.  Just look at how the darker Cubans and Brazilians are treated compared to the lighter ones'.  Look at the gangs in the inner city and the race wars that persist.  Please don't insult Jerome unless you have facts to back up your positions.

Sorry for the double post, I accidentally posted this as a reply above:

Just a week or so ago you posted a diary stating that Barack Obama is unelectable in the general, with a disclaimer stating that it had nothing to do with his race and threatening to ban anyone who brought race into the discussion.

Now, you're saying that, no, actually, it's true that he can't win because he's black, only it has nothing to do with white racism, it's because Latinos won't vote for a black candidate?

I beg to differ. The list of black politicians representing predominantly Latino districts here in LA and elsewhere is very long -- in California it might be the majority of them.

I've canvassed for Barack in East Los Angeles. Most of those who know him like him, but many just don't know him yet. Obama may in fact have a particular appeal even beyond other black politicians because of his immigrant background.

I mean, I don't see any evidence of a problem.

Literally.

Do you have nothing positive to say about your own candidate, Jerome?

Surely Hillary has done SOMETHING worth talking about these last few years...I keep hearing about all this "experience" she has and how "we know where she stands" - but I don't know her message. Maybe you could tell us what it is?

Did you read the diary?  Did you analyze the data?  Did you read the demographic information presented in the pollster's full report?  I assume you did not, for you are dismissing the argument tout court without evidence and without a compelling argument.  Instead, you resort to ad hominem statements that are vacuous and counterproductive.  You have absolutely nothing to offer, and you do not know how to interpret polling data.

Regarding Clinton, you are more than welcome to visit her website and read her policy statements.  But you are an Obama supporter, and you refuse to consider other candidates' stances.  After all, you would learn that Hillary and not Obama offers universal health care.  You would also learn that Hillary and not Obama has decades of experience improving access to quality education.  You may even learn about all the progressive changes Clinton enacted during her 17 year tenure in Arkansas. But no, you are Elise, and you refuse to read.  Instead, you will post vacuous statements online in a vain attempt to invalidate those who support other candidates.

I must say you are one tragic figure.

Wow, this was a depressing read.  By the time this election is over, we're going to have had to face a lot about sexism and racism in this country and how far we still have to go even though it's almost 2008.  

Although, honestly, if you would have told me even in 2000 that in 2008 the top two Democratic contenders would be a woman and an African American man  AND that it was a year in which the Democrats were expected to win (as opposed to nominating Geraldine Ferraro for VP on Mondale's cannon-fodder ticket), I'm not sure I would have believed you.  So that's at least some progress.  

At least we're participating at the top.  It's revealing some fairly screwed up things, but at least we're learning that by competing in the process instead of being locked out of it.

I do think whatever problem Obama may have with Latinos is likely to be a non-issue.  I'm just not sure McCain can recover because he is so loathed by so many in the Republican base (although I admit they don't have a lot of stellar choices either).  To the extent McCain is the nominee, I think he's the hardest candidate for any of the Dems to beat and I also think, with the right campaign, any of the big Dems can beat him.

I do worry about how race or gender bias could hurt the Democratic nominee if it's Obama or Clinton.  But, in the end, I think we just have to nominate the person we think is best overall and hope that's enough.  It's not like nominating the white guy has always produced a winner for the Dems.

I think these kind of statistics are one more argument against the electoral college.  Part of the problem with that system is it lets concentrated groups of voters in swing states decide things on narrow parochial grounds.  The most obvious of these, to me at least, is the disproportionate effect Cuban voters have in Florida.   But it also explains some of the suck up to the white males of the South and Midwest states like Ohio and Michigan.  There's simply no reason any racial or ethnic group should have a disproportionate amount of influence just because they are concentrated in certain areas of the country.

For that matter, it's ridiculous that 6% of Democrats in Iowa (at most) might choose the Democratic nominee.  If nothing else, I'm happy to see the race tightening because it makes that less likely.  

So, basically, my radical position is everyone should get to vote and all votes should be counted equally.  Crazy talk, I know.

this is awful, hispanics will love Obama's positions compared to Republicans in fact he stood up for not them throughout his whole career including in the Vegas debate. If becausewe nominate a black man and hispanics won't vote dem anymore we lose then you know what what's the point. Hillary will have huge problems with indy white men, polls show it and we know it, Edwards will have trouble with upper income suburban dems who might be tuned off to populism, so please stop it. Oh and go ask your expartner KOS about this -----theres one hispanic that's voting for Obama.

1. They aren't legal

2. Those that are legal, aren't citizens.
   
3. Those that are citizens  just don't vote in large numbers.

They'll have a choice. They can go with the White man whose party has called them everything under the sun.

Or, they can go with the Black man, who has tried to extend his hand to them.

I, personally, wasn't surprised by the study, because I always bring up, look how they treat their fellow AFRO-Latins. Look at the television programs. Watching them,you would never believe that 80% of the slaves from Africa went somewhere else OTHER than North America.

I don't doubt that they'd follow the White man, because that's the kind of buying into White Supremacy that they practice.

McCain is from a neighboring state and beats both Hillary AND Obama in a general matchup.  Hillary is better known nationally and may explain why she is polling better than Obama in NM (although still worse than McCain).  In general, though, I think that folks from the Southwest will take someone from the Southwest any day over a Chicagoan or New Yorker.  

One thing that barely makes the national news is the looming water fight out West.  The people that live out there believe (and probably rightly so) that only someone from the Southwest understands the problem and can come up with some sort of agreement which does not simply give all of the water to Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

I guess I was expecting some actual data showing Obama polling worse with Latinos.  Either way, the polling isn't great.

One last thing:  If you take the 2004 election map as it ended, flipping Colorado and either New Mexico or Nevada blue gives a Democrat win.  This of course assumes that Iowas, Ohio, and West Virginia stay red.

So even if Obama or Hillary lost New Mexico because of the supposed Latino animosity (or McCain proximity), it's not necessarily a disaster.

Never thought I'd see the day when Jerome resorted to race baiting to make his case against Obama.

This is a hypothetical that won't occur. Either Independents in NH will go to McCain and Clinton will win. Or Independents will go to Obama and Romney or Huckabee will win. The bigger issue is that McCain will beat Clinton as well (not just Obama). The NH primary is basically the General election. If McCain does well, we are in trouble. The key is to get Independents to go for Obama in NH and then whoever gets the dem nomination (which would probably be Obama), can beat any of the other Repub candidates.

Another "Don't vote for Obama 'cuz he's black" diary. I think this is the first one of this type from Jerome.

This type of analysis completely ignores the lessons of 2006 and the importance of the Iraq War. There is no way McCain will take New Mexico after he is not only attacked for, but openly admits that he will not remove American troops from Iraq during his first term.

Race is a weak force in American politics nowadays. The strong issues of the day are Iraq, immigration, and health care.

Also keep in mind:

1) Obama is unknown outside of the early primary states. People in New Mexico don't know where he stands on the issues. Polls a year before election day are largely meaningless, especially considering that McCain and Clinton have much higher name ID than Obama.

2) It's very unlikely that both Obama and McCain will be the nominees. The road goes through New Hampshire, and the independents there can only vote for one of them.

3) If, as your theory goes, Hispanics aren't saying that they'll vote for Obama because he is a generic black man, doesn't it stand to reason that his place in the polls will improve as he is better known, and that his powerful rhetoric can get him past other's racial fears?

The best the Republican can do in an 04 Bush state against a big, scary black man is 51%, and that's with a neighboring Senator with a liberal immigration plan? Isn't that a good sign?

in this country say that they will NEVER vote for Hillary. That includes a majority of MEN in EVERY ETHNIC CATEGORY.

But, I don't see you writing diaries about THAT.

So what is the answer? NEVER nominate a Black person because of Latinos?

BUMP THAT.

I'll remind you that Blacks are the base of this party, and continued disrespect that I see from some across the blogosphere will be challenged.

http://www.insideradvantagegeorgia.com/r estricted/2007/December%202007/12-21-07/ Insider_Georgia_Poll1221196310.php

Frankly I'm sick and tired of the hispanic in America getting a free ride. Lets add things up. They are benefitting from the civil rights act that black people shed blood to get pass that made it gravy for any other ethnic group to walk into America and enjoy from day one. They inter into America by breaking our laws and expect to be treating as equals. Hispanic should be kissing black people ass in the united states. I'm all in favor of deploying all of illegals back to there country.  Look,,,,, if Operation Wetback could send 1.2 Million hispanics back to there country in 1954 we sure do have the means in 2008 to send 12 Million back.