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Suddenly, we Latinos find ourselves in the spotlight of a Presidential election like never before. This is a good thing. Thanks to hysterical Republicans up in arms over last year's immigration debate, the Latino electorate has swayed heavily towards the Democratic Party.
My heart and support has always been for Obama. But I must confess that I was not a believer until very recently. When it became clear to me that Obama and Hillarity were going to run for office and had realistic chances of winning, I was overwhelmed by the excitement of the historical proportions of this election. This is progress, I thought. The United States of America is actually considering sending a woman or an African-American to the oval office. But my heart went out to both in pity (yes, even to Hillary). No freaking way, I said to myself, no chance in hell that the man will allow this to happen. In the end, I was convinced, Edwards would pull through.
Now that the dust has settled and Obama, HillBill and a wobbly Edwards are the only four standing, I somewhat feel a tad bit guilty for having had zero to no faith in the American voter.
For the purposes of this diary I am going to ignore Edwards even though he is a solid candidate. Better late than never, I am now fully on board the Obama train.
But as a Latino, I was blindsided to find myself with so very few other Latinos on board in New Jersey. HillBillies seem to have an edge that I had completely overlooked. I will let one such HillBilly speak as quoted from the first paragraph in this article:
http://www.diversityinc.com/pu...
A recent New Yorker article ended with the following quote from Sen. Hillary Clinton's Latino pollster Sergio Bendixen: "The Hispanic voter--and I want to say this very carefully--has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates."
The reality of this painfully sad truth cannot be denied. This is a major obstacle that Senator Obama faces with Latino voters.
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