The candidates have been courting this essential voting bloc, including speeches this week to La Raza. One thing is clear: Latinos will not be ignored.

SAN DIEGO —  During Barack Obama’s speech to the 40th annual conference of the National Council of La Raza Sunday, the presumptive Democratic nominee casually referred to “my friend Hillary Clinton.”

The Latino radio talk show host next to me quipped, “So they’re friends now?”

“Yeah,” I joked. “That’s how you know neither of them is Latino. We’ll hold a grudge for 500 years.”

Latinos aren’t known to forgive and forget. And that’s a problem for John McCain, who spoke Monday. The presumptive Republican nominee has put at risk decades of support from Latino voters in Arizona because of the perception he flip-flopped on immigration. Whereas once he talked about the need for a comprehensive approach that includes giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, he now calls first for securing the border.

But for many Latinos, it’s not just what McCain says that is the problem. It’s why he says it. He’s clearly attempting to placate the nativist fringe of the GOP. So the message that Latinos take away is that the Arizona senator is a fair-weather friend.

A foolhardy strategy

McCain is on a fool’s errand. The nativists detest him for, among other things, calling them nativist. Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum tried to torpedo McCain in the Republican primaries by revealing that, in a private meeting with GOP senators during the immigration debate, McCain scolded his colleagues for being “xenophobic.” He told them that by being tough on the borders, many Latinos would see it as a racist attack, and he was right. Now many Latinos see McCain as bending under pressure. They want a guarantee that, if elected, it’ll be the old McCain that tackles immigration reform.

Just as he did when the candidates spoke before the National Association of Latino Elected Officials and the League of United Latin American Citizens, Obama wasted no time in jabbing at McCain’s weak spot. Saying that he once admired McCain because he “used to buck his own party on immigration,” Obama accused his opponent of abandoning that stance. “I don’t know about you,” Obama said. “But I think it’s time for a president who won’t walk away from something as important as comprehensive reform when it becomes politically unpopular.”

The line brought down the house while stinging McCain. When he spoke the next day, McCain made reference to Obama’s attack and sought to “correct the record.” He spelled out the “hard votes” he cast in the Senate in 2005 and 2007 in favor of the comprehensive reform plan he co-authored. And he said Obama declined to cast some of those votes and, in fact, sponsored labor-friendly amendments intended to kill the legislation.

“I never ask any special privileges from anyone just for having done the right thing,” McCain said. “Doing my duty to my country is its own reward. But I do ask for your trust that when I say that I remain committed to fair, practical and comprehensive immigration reform, I mean it.” That straight talk also drew a strong crowd response. Latinos value loyalty, and many are inclined to stay loyal to McCain.

Many people around the country were probably watching to see how the presidential candidates handled their appearances before the nation’s largest and perhaps most controversial Latino advocacy group. I’d call it a draw.

The irony is that, for U.S.-born Hispanics in particular, immigration is just one issue. They tell pollsters they care about Iraq, the economy, education and health care, just like other Americans. But with the immigration debate so heated and the national mood so ugly, Hispanics are more intensely interested in the issue than they were a few years ago when the waters were calm. In fact, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a majority of Hispanics say immigration is a top issue that will influence their votes in November.

La Raza’s mission

As part of that ugliness, the candidates have been criticized for even bothering to court Latino voters. CNN’s Lou Dobbs regularly blasts La Raza as a “socio-ethnocentric organization.” Apparently, the phrase refers to anyone who stands up to fear-mongers who seek attention  —  and ratings  —  by setting off cultural alarm bells and poisoning race relations.

If anything, La Raza has been too corporate, too cautious and too co-opted by Fortune 500 companies seeking an entrée into the $800 billion-a-year Latino market. When its leaders needed to be raising hell, they were raising corporate donations and foundation dollars and steering clear of controversies that could put either in jeopardy.

President and CEO Janet Murguia, who took the reins a few years ago, has been more aggressive in defense of Hispanics. In April, Murguia informed the National Press Club that the immigration debate had turned hateful and that all Hispanics  —  even the 80% who are U.S. citizens or legal residents —  are feeling the backlash. Murguia vowed, “We will not be demonized. We will not be scapegoated. And we will not be ignored.”

Given recent events, I’d say there is little chance of that.

About The Author: Ruben Navarrette is a member of the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune and a nationally syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group. Ruben is a fresh voice on political and social issues who challenges readers to think in new ways — His twice-weekly column offers new thinking on many of the major issues of the day, especially on thorny questions involving ethnicity and national origin….[MORE >>]

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