How will Bass or Caruso win? Latino vote, liberal unity, voter rage, rain all factors in deciding. It’s a doozy.
“It seems to me that the country is a little divided right now,” said Bob Stein, a Democratic strategist who was part of the debate-committee team for Sen. Barack Obama’s 2008 White House bid. “You have the liberals, who feel good, comfortable — and they tell us how great things are — but they come out of the gate with some fire, some enthusiasm, but then they realize that we’ve got a great candidate and an even better agenda. It’s like you’ve got a fire sale. You’re selling everything, and you’re trying to put on this great show of hope and change, and the country turns out to be a little chilly and cynical.”
Obama got 47 percent of the Latino vote against John McCain in 2008, and so did first-term Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1996.
“There are some signs of a unity,” Stein said, “but it all starts with Latinos.”
It’s all about the Latinos, which we’ll get to in a moment.
“Why?” I say. “Because the Latino vote in this election will determine whether Barack Obama or John McCain — Barack Obama, who is more Latino — wins.”
And there I was — on the other side of the world, telling the other side of the world how they’ll win. (I just realized: So, I’m not an idiot. I’m not on the side of people.)
Latinos have been voting for decades in numbers that have not been seen in 20 years, and turnout this year in five states — Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, New Mexico and Virginia — is over 70 percent… and the polls show it’s a virtual lock that Obama will be our next president.
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