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Posted on 06/19/2003 2:50:12 AM PDT by fightinJAG
Davis Needs Ethnic Vote in Recall Election -- So Where Is He?
News Analysis, Mary Jo McConahay, Pacific News Service, Jun 18, 2003
Editor's Note: As a recall election looms, Gov. Gray Davis has done little to reach out to his traditional base of supporters in ethnic and minority communities -- inaction that some pollsters and community advocates call "stunning."
SAN FRANCISCO--As the movement to recall Gov. Gray Davis steams ahead with surprising force, polls show him losing decisively unless he fires new life into one-time supporters. In this most diverse state in the country, with millions of Latinos, Asian Americans and foreign-born citizens, many of whom voted for Davis last November, the vote of ethnic and minority communities could make or break any recall election now.
Yet Davis -- inexplicably, from the point of view of some neighborhoods -- has not yet excited support against the recall among many Latinos and Asians, as if "it's a game being played by others in which we have no stake," as one Mexican American put it.
"It's stunning people who are watching this," says David Lee of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee. "Polling shows he'll lose unless he can go back to his base of support -- Latino and ethnic voters -- but Davis' advisors have failed to do the obvious. They've done nothing to reach out to them."
It would not be the first time the ethnic vote was key. When Republican Bill Simon ran against Davis in November, Simon garnered 51 per cent of the white, non-Hispanic ballots. But Davis carried the ethnic vote, which arguably secured the governor's chair for him for a second term. In a recall election, college graduates, seniors and the wealthy are considered most likely to vote, a profile that favors Republicans. But in California, "minorities" taken together outnumber whites, according to the 2000 census. They can make a difference -- if they go to the polls.
"At this point the most incredible thing is it could go either way," says Mark DiCamillo, managing director of the Field Poll, which has long surveyed Californians' attitudes and voting patterns. If alternative candidates are weak, Davis could pull through handily. If they are strong -- names floated include Sen. Dianne Feinstein, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante -- the challenge to Davis could be momentous. "If you believe it will be close, the minority vote -- especially Latino -- is pivotal," DiCamillo says. Latinos number almost a third of the state's 33 million population.
Yet pro-Davis forces appear to be making little effort to reach out to a traditional Democratic base of minority groups.
"Recall is a non-issue in our community," says Daniel Munoz, editor of the weekly bilingual newspaper La Prensa of San Diego. "It seems as if our vote is not expected or hoped for." Neither Democrats, nor the talk shows beating the recall drums in the San Diego area address themselves to the city's heavily Mexican American population. There is virtually "nothing" in the Spanish-language press about the recall, Munoz says.
Farther north, journalists in California's Central Valley, which also has a significant Hispanic vote, report no contacts of the kind they are usually showered with as a key election looms.
"We're not aware of the issues, and don't know how lives will be impacted," says Ben Vu, host of a weekly Hmong television program, and a thrice-weekly radio program which reaches a Southeast Asian audience from Merced to Bakersfield. "This recall thing is foreign to them." Hmong number some 75,000 in California. Because they have low incomes, large families and agricultural jobs, like Latinos in the Central Valley, Vu says their political interests are often the same.
San Francisco will be implementing a complicated new instant runoff voting system in the next primary elections, so should a recall vote happen then, says David Lee, "it could cost Gray Davis severely." San Francisco is one city Davis could and should win overwhelmingly -- it's Democrat, liberal, with high turnout. It's also highly diverse -- one-third of the city is Asian, mostly Chinese. But unfamiliarity with the new voting system could cause votes to be lost.
Statewide, budget cuts under Davis have eaten into public education and other services important to ethnic and immigrant communities. Munoz believes a recall "creates chaos and hurts everybody." Nevertheless, at this point in his community, he says, enthusiasm for Davis is low and "nobody wants to go out and save his job for him."
One possibility that might rally a big Latino turnout, especially if the recall happens at the same time as the primary elections, when Latinos are more likely to go vote anyway, would be the appearance of respected Democrat Cruz Bustamante on the ballot. In a Field poll of six hypothetical -- "very hypothetical," says DiCamillo -- candidates, Bustamante outpolled the others, which included Schwarzenegger, Feinstein and Condoleezza Rice. A Latino turnout that went to the polls intending to recall the current governor in order to elect the state's first Latino governor, of course, would help Gray Davis not at all.
PNS Editor Mary Jo McConahay (mcconahay@pacificnews.org) is a journalist and filmmaker.
Ahhhh... Maybe with a $38 billion deficit, Davis has run out of "pandering money", the only way he could get these votes.
That would explain this whine. Some of my favorites;
"it's a game being played by others in which we have no stake," as one Mexican American put it. Said "someone" who advances our view of turning out the straight Democratic minority vote.
names floated include Sen. Dianne Feinstein, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante Yup, that answers that question-they're hard Left. They mention 2 radical Leftists and one unknowable moderate. Where's Issa? Where's McClintock?
But in California, "minorities" taken together outnumber whites, according to the 2000 census. They can make a difference -- if they go to the polls. Please. *sniff* Vote!...No one can ever say that Democrates lack confidence or humility.
There is virtually "nothing" in the Spanish-language press about the recall, Munoz says. Maybe because defending Davis' leadership is indefensible for all but the most partisan hacks.
Statewide, budget cuts under Davis have eaten into public education and other services important to ethnic and immigrant communities. So he's not Marxist enough for Pacifica...excellent. Munoz believes a recall "creates chaos and hurts everybody." Nevertheless, at this point in his community, he says, enthusiasm for Davis is low and "nobody wants to go out and save his job for him." Nice slight of hand, but the truth is he can't be defended because he is still increasing spending yearly 38% whole in the red by $38.2 billion. There is no druming up support for that idiocy, no matter what language you speak.
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Exactly.
Given that non-hispanic whites are no longer a majority in CA, could you imagine someone saying, "If you believe it will be close,... the white vote is pivotal" without getting branded a racist? Apparently to the author, it's okay for a politician to pander to nonwhite minorities, but it's probably not okay to do the same to white-only audiences.
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