Nevada has African Americans and Latinos, sources say

Yes, white male Republican presidential candidates hate Mexicans. That's been clearly established. But what about black people? Do they hate Mexicans, too? The New York Times wants to know:

Mr. Obama confronts a history of often uneasy and competitive relations between blacks and Hispanics, particularly as they have jockeyed for influence in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

“Many Latinos are not ready for a person of color,” Natasha Carrillo, 20, of East Los Angeles, said. “I don’t think many Latinos will vote for Obama. There’s always been tension in the black and Latino communities. There’s still that strong ethnic division. I helped organize citizenship drives, and those who I’ve talked to support Clinton.”

The story includes obligatory quotes from Ruben Kihuen, the Official Latino of the Nevada Democratic Party, bestowing new meaning on the old caricature of the Democrats as the mommy party:

“The Hispanic community is very family oriented, and we respect our mothers,” said Ruben Kihuen, an influential Democratic assemblyman from Las Vegas who supported Mrs. Clinton. “A lot of middle-aged women see her as a mother, a head of the household, and they can identify with this. Especially when they see her daughter, Chelsea, with her.”

Bill Richardson and Al Sharpton (here making perhaps their inaugural joint appearance in the same sentence) are also quoted. Sharpton seems to be suggesting that it will be difficult for Obama to transcend Latino-African American tensions because Obama has yet to publicly admit to being black. Or something like that. Richardson says the rivalry is overstated and wishes that everyone would just get along, as is his custom.

While Latinos are expected to play a more significant role in the election in 2008 than they have in the past, here is yet another version of the obligatory disclaimer accompanying that perennial hope, laced with a Southern Nevada historical vignette for added value: 

Latinos are famous, or infamous, for not showing up to vote in numbers proportionate to their share of the population. Glen Arnodo, who used to have Pilar Weiss' job as the Culinary's political director before moving to organize for UNITE HERE in L.A. a few years back, always contended that if Latinos in the Las Vegas area had shown up to vote in numbers that matched their percentage of the population, Al Gore would have won the presidency in 2000. (And yes, beloved Republican Gleaner readers, Arnodo was talking only about that portion of the Latino population that were U.S. citizens and who could vote but didn't, so relax already).

Nothing is ever simple anyway. Clinton is seriously courting Latinos. The Obama-supporting Culinary union seriously represents Latinos. The fault line in Nevada's caucus may not be between blacks and Latinos as much as it is between Latinos and Latinos. Dang! Why can't people behave in monolithic blocs to fit NYT storylines?

Having said that ...

The Nevada caucus campaigns effectively kicked off last March, when Clinton, Obama and Richardson showed up in a parking lot to address about 5,000 hospitality workers gathered by the Culinary in an impressive early demonstration of the union's ability to get people where they want them to be (maybe doubly impressive in that the event was happening at the same time that UNLV's basketball team was playing in a nationally televised Sweet 16 game).

At that rally, and in the course of remarks during the many ensuing appearances with union members by all the Democratic presidential candidates, Culinary poohbah D. Taylor stressed the diversity of the organization's membership and the importance of standing together against the greed, insensitivity and rapacity of the world's largest gambling/hotel corporations, not despite the membership's ethnic or cultural differences, but because of them. 

Taylor reiterated some of that message last week when he announced the union's endorsement of Obama.

"In America in this day and age, whites, African Americans, Latinos and Asians don't really come together a lot. Politicians divide us up all the time," Taylor said. "And what this union is about, and what American needs to be about, is not diving people up, but bringing people together, from all walks of life for the common good."

Yes, brother, kumbayah, etc.

But for all the hooplah and excitement — and pain and bloodletting and embarrassment — of Nevada's moment in the kleig lights, and at the risk of being a big fat buzzkill, it should be remembered that barring unforeseen events of unimaginable magnitude, the Nevada Democratic caucus, at the end of the day, is not going to decide the Democratic presidential nomination. This Saturday afternoon, the presidential campaigns will close their offices and go somewhere else to call each other names and practice their conniving trickery.

Meantime in Nevada, whites, African Americans, Latinos, Asians and everybody else is going to have to keep going to work and yelling at their kids and chasing members of the opposite sex or the same sex or working on their cars or whatever the hell else it is that they do. And though not as well funded or practiced in the dark arts as, oh, say, the Clinton campaign, there will still be politicians of the local variety trying to divide us up.

All the other political kids and even other unions can hate the Culinary if they want, s'pose, as described in a perhaps overstated narrative in Tuesday's Sun (they still won't hate the Culinary as much as bitchy little area megalomaniac and bazillionaire warmonger Sheldon Adelson does, just btw). 

But whatever the intensity of racial tensions and distrust that might be running through Southern Nevada at any given time, it'd be dialed up a few notches higher if not for the Culinary.

Comments

Good one, Gleaner. It is difficult to understate how badly the HRC camp and the NSEA screwed up here.

This last-second lawsuit MIGHT shut down the at-large caucuses, and that MIGHT be enough to win HRC the Nevada caucuses by a couple of points. As Gleaner says, big, fat, hairy deal -- that will give HRC some "momentum," but it won't win her the nomination.

At what price will she gain Nevada?

The Culinary Union and its members almost certainly would've backed HRC in the general and walked door-to-door for her until November.

Do you think they'll do so now?

The Culinary Union had come out against the NSEA gaming-tax hike, but did not appear ready to throw a lot of effort into it. Certainly the union membership wouldn't have given two craps about fighting a casino tax hike.

What do you think 226 will do now? Of all the people you don't want to cross in this town, D. Taylor is pretty damn high on the list. You've now turned the gaming-tax debate into a jihad for 226, an opportunity to exact some vengeance on Warne & Co.

I personally have no dog in this fight. I'm firmly in the Edwards camp, and I was annoyed (but not surprised) at 226 for ditching labor's closest friend in the interest of political expediency.

But this kind of last-minute legal B.S. is just ... stupid.

I fail to see how the supposed benefits of an HRC presidency justify touching off a civil war within Nevada's labor movement and its Democratic party.

[texexnv@yahoo.com]

Well done, Hugh. Yes, when the freak show does finally move on, Nevadans are stuck with the cleanup and the carney clowns' pockets are fat with sucker money.

Sunday is, indeed, going to be a day to give thanks that the freak show is back on the road.

D. Taylor, political bad ass? Political mob boss? Uses a slight of hand in Nevada Demo party rules to exaggerate the Culinary's power here?

No one is commenting about that because this is an anti-Clinton board, a cyberspace crock, like the pro-Dean army of blog posters in 2004.

Obama takes advantage of unconstitutional party rules, and everyone here is criticizing Clinton's supporters for objecting.

[Bored]

Nevada's got 33 delegates to send to the Dem National convention from our caucuses Saturday.

Whoo-hooo!! We really matter.

It will take like 2,025 delegates or such to get the Dem Prez nomination!

Great -- Nevada's delegation will serve as the janitors in Denver!!

Just look at the company we are in, man:

New Mexico 02/05 38 delegates
Utah 02/05 29
Delaware 02/05 23
Idaho 02/05 23
North Dakota 02/05 21
Alaska 02/05 18

[Goldy]

This entire caucus idea is like a Mission Impossible III story line where the goal is to covertly destroy the Nevada Democratic Party. Only it is less like MI III and more like Scooby Doo, but this time the meddling kids don't thwart the villain and the party is destroyed. Harry Reid will pull off his Harry Reid mask, and it will really be Aaron Russo, who faked his own death! He will have fractured the party, deprived Nevada of Clean Coal power, cut off all money to D candidates, and left the Senate seat vulnerable to a Republican. Who will be our Ethan Hunt? John Hunt? Who will be our Shaggy? Reuben? This message will self destruct on Sunday.

[watching]

Your question in the story's opening paragraph, "But what about black people? Do they hate Mexicans, too?", is contrasted by Natasha Carrillo, 20 of East Los Angeles,who is reported thusly, “Many Latinos are not ready for a person of color.” So who hated first? The impact of this question is a great socio-political question!

I don't see how Assemblyman Ruben Kihuen comment that Hispanics love of mothers, “The Hispanic community is very family oriented, and we respect our mothers,” is far off the mark for the Black community either. Seventy percent of African American children are born out of wedlock, and for the most part it seems that they too respect their mothers. How any of this is germain to getting votes for Clinton is lost on me, unless someone is purposefully creating a wedge issue for political gain.

Wow, who saw a triple race issue? Getting unanimity in this Country continues to be a struggle. This issue was contemplated by Thomas Jefferson in his 1782 "Notes on Virginia";
"These principles [immigrants], with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers they will share legislation with us. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp or bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass."

[NVMojo]

target="_blank">Hillary Clinton Native American supports not supporting Obama too

[dtjr]

I think the least you could do is mention your mother owned the trailer park.