As
if the Latino vote that accounts for just over a quarter of the city’s population
but about 17 percent of the registered voters in Chicago is going to turn out
in such strength as to overcome the man who can count Barack Obama as a
personal colleague.
I’M
IN A position where I personally would be intrigued by a serious campaign for
political office run by a Latino – and not just because Chicago needs to have
someone other than Luis Gutierrez be the primary Latino political face to come
from the city.
Although
I have to admit to being skeptical enough that I have already braced myself for
the likelihood that Mayor Rahm Emanuel will manage to get himself re-elected to
the dreaded “four more years.”
Political
apathy amongst the masses, rather than a Latino voter turnout of historic
nature, is what we’re likely to see come the April 7 run-off elections.
For
his part, Garcia has tried to make some connections to Latino officials
elsewhere in the United States – both for moral support and for fund-raising
help. He’s going to get his clock cleaned financially by Rahm’s millions, but
still wants to appear competitive.
A
LACKLUSTER CAMPAIGN by Chuy would be more harmful to Latino political
empowerment than anything else.
Earlier
this week, the Latino Victory Fund tried its part to elevate Garcia’s status,
endorsing his mayoral campaign along with that of a Puerto Rican official
seeking to become mayor of Philadelphia and an aldermanic candidate from
Seattle.
The
group pointed out that Garcia, who already has the designation of being the
first Mexican-American ever elected to the Illinois Senate, has been running a “trailblazing
candidacy” that “has energized the Latino community.”
Yet
there’s the poll done by the Miami-based Latino Decisions organization that
contends 65 percent of all Latinos surveyed in Chicago had not been contacted
by any campaign to check to see if they were going to vote, or if they were
even registered.
CONSIDERING
THAT GARCIA needs an overwhelming, almost Harold Washington-like voter turnout
amongst Latinos if he’s to have a chance of success, that doesn’t say much for
a campaign organization that can turn out the vote he needs on Election Day.
Which
makes me wonder how solid that 61 percent of Latino voter support for Garcia
(compared to 18 percent of Latinos for Emanuel) truly is. Considering that just
about all of the Latino political officials in Chicago are publicly backing
Rahm, I wonder if the 18 percent will turn out to vote for sure, while the 61
percent will show up if they can’t find something better to do on Election Day.
We
can talk about spirit and spunk all we want, but it is a good voter ground game
that wins elections. Who bothers to vote?
Earlier
I mentioned the idea of a “Harold Washington-like” turnout, referring to the
overwhelming dominance that the former mayor got from African-American voters.
As in the fact that in the wards with predominantly black populations, Harold
took in excess of 90 percent of the vote.
I’M
NOT SURE Latinos quierre Chuy the
same way that Harold was beloved by black voters way back when. Even if I
suspect that Harold himself, if he were alive, would vote for Garcia.
It
is a rare political phenomenon – the closest I have ever seen to it was back in
the ’98 Democratic gubernatorial primary when ultimate nominee Glenn Poshard
dominated the Southern Illinois counties by taking as much as 98 percent of the
vote in some places; making up for the fact that Chicago voters wanted any one
of the other three candidates to win.
Unless
Garcia can create something similar, he’s likely to fall short. The fact that
the Mariachi Aguilas de Oxnard (who also did the Viva Obama mariachi song back in 2008) has put together a corrido entitled Don Chuy de La Villita is cute.
But
all it does is ensure that Garcia will be able to reminisce about an
unsuccessful mayoral campaign while watching a YouTube video in coming years.
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