Strategy for Kerry: 'Wind up' Cuban vote

[Mika]

How many time a day do we hear Al Franken, Ed Shultz, Randi Rhodes, Guy James, etc etc etc, babble on that Florida hispanics "traditionally" vote repug? (As part of their "observations" on the Fla felon purge list that had almost no hispanics.)

They are dead wrong w/their false stereotyping.




A strategy for Kerry: 'Wind up' Cuban vote
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/9267955.htm

But even more threatening to the White House: A survey of registered voters by the New Democratic Network done by Miami pollster Sergio Bendixen earlier this month found a cavernous divide in party loyalties between Cubans who arrived in the United States before 1980 and those who came later or who were born in the United States.

Those in that first wave, who comprise about two-thirds of the total vote, still favor Bush over Kerry by an incredible 92 percent to 6 percent.

But the post-Mariel Cubans favor Kerry over Bush by 55 to 20 percent. And those born here back the Democrat by 58 to 35 percent.

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The long-term implications of this aside, if that survey is accurate and nothing changes between now and Election Day, Bush could lose 100,000 Hispanic votes from his 2000 total. That's a seismic shift in a state that was officially decided by 537 votes.

FYI,

charts from opensecrets.org

[Joy Anne]

1. Thanks

for the heartening information.

[Mika]

2. Its disheartening to hear the D talking heads repeat the lie over & over

I hear it several times a day on AA radio.

[NWHarkness]

3. I wouldn't call it a lie, so much

as I would call it relying on outdated information.

[Mika]

4. Outdated info? LOL

They are relying on stereotyping combined with NO info. Then they repeat it over and over.

I have called to dispute it, emailed & faxed these charts to no avail. Once the Dem talking point is out, there's little deviation from it.

[NWHarkness]

8. You can "LOL"all you want

But your own source states clearly that Cuban who arrived in the US prior to 1980 vote overwhelmingly Republican.

Hence, simple logic tells us that at one point in the not too distant past, the Cuban-American vote was overwhelmingly Republican. Hence, the belief that most Cubans vote Republican is not a lie, it is just outdated information.

Has it occurred to you that people can be in error, or do you assume that all false statements are lies?

[leyton]

5. It is not as "false" as you think.

What they are talking about is Cuban Americans, which are the most visible group of Hispanics in Florida.

Cuban Americans make up a vast plurality of Florida hispanics; according to census data, in 1990, for example, 674,000 of Florida's 1.57 million Hispanics were Cuban Americans. ("Awash in the Mainstream" by Rodolfo de la Garza, page 215.) The next biggest segment is Puerto Ricans, who made up about 247,000.

Cuban Americans tend to vote for Republicans. (That may be changing, but traditionally, they do vote for Republicans.) In the Latino National Polital Survey, for example, 74% of Cubans identified themselves as Republicans. ("Counting on the Latino Vote", by Louis deSipio, page 64. Published in 1996 - old, but traditional.)

I think Franken and the others are wrong in assuming the majority of Florida Hispanics are Cuban Americans, but the fact that they were just a plurality and not a majority came as a surprise to me, and I've been doing research on this topic for some time now. However, they are correct in thinking that traditionally these Cuban Americans vote Republican, so that is where this bit of conventional wisdom comes from.

[Mika]

6. How are those charts explained then?

1982, 84, 86 are the only cycles that Cuban-American contributions to repugs was greater than that for the Dem party (and not by much). EVERY other election cycle the C-A community contributed a greater amount to the Dem party.

Traditional repugs? Not.

[leyton]

7. Money is not votes.

Perhaps Cuban-Americans gave more money to Democrats, but that does not mean that more Cuban-Americans vote for Republicans.

After all, Bush and Kerry are even in the polls and Americans gave more money to Bush by many millions of dollars. Does that mean that more Americans support Bush?

Show me data that says Cuban-Americans have traditionally voted for Democrats.