This week Jorge Ramos, anchor of Noticiero Univision, was a guest on Comedy Central's hit show, "The Colbert Report." While the show is intended to be satirical and of course, amusing, some serious issues about both candidates' attitudes toward immigration were brought to light.
Referred to by Colbert as the "Latino Walter Cronkite," Ramos made the observation that the Latino vote is "no longer at play" this election season. According to Ramos, Latinos have decided to follow the historical precedent of voting along Democratic lines. Citing a recent poll, Ramos revealed that a mere 21 percent would be voting for Romney in November.
It appears to many, that the candidates may have caught on to this trend. The Denver Post observes, "neither candidate reached out to Latino voters" in last night's debate. This could either be a timing issue (as Ramos said, the Latino vote is already decided) or an issue of setting. It seems to me that both candidates are very concerned with issues affecting Latinos only when they are speaking to populations in which this demographic is heavily represented (e.g. Miami). According to this year's census, Hispanics make up 16.7 percent of the U.S. population. A sizable percentage, no doubt, but how many were watching the debates (especially if Ramos' theory is correct, and they have already checked out of the election)? I'm not surprised that Latino issues weren't discussed, because I agree with Ramos; Latinos are no longer a part of the audience.
While the Latino vote may be decided, it doesn't appear that either the group's Democrats or Republicans are really jazzed about their choices. Romney's policy of "self-deportation," in which actions are taken to motivate illegal immigrants to leave voluntarily, was discussed at length in the interview. Colbert even took a dig at Romney's infamous 47 percent gaffe (discussed in my last post), joking that Hispanics represented this 47 percent by expecting the government to give them a "free ride to the border."
While as expected, Romney may have received the majority of the digs, Obama's reputation was not left unscathed. According to Ramos, the president has deported more Latinos than any president in our nation's history. While he mentioned that the President had blamed this campaign promise short-fall on the uncooperation of Republicans, "a promise is a promise," Ramos insisted.
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