Opinions about Barack Obama's V.P. Choice

This week David Alire Garcia and Gene Grant are both in Denver for the Democratic National Convention. Check back for updates from them throughout the week. In their absence, LINE panelist Jim Scarantino will be filling in as guest host. He'll check in with David and Gene later in the week, but we unfortunately won't have time for the rest of THE LINE panelists to sound off on the week's top stories. But, we couldn't let the week go by without finding out what everyone thinks about Barack Obama's choice for running mate. Here is a running conversation on the issue from Margaret, Jim and Marco:

Marco Gonzales

So much for being the candidate of change! Obama's pick of a 36 year veteran of the Congress signals to the American people that an Obama administration would operate on politics as usual basis and also confirms that his campign believes their candidate is vulnerable on the question of whether he is ready to be President. The selection of Joe Biden is less than an inspiring choice and has strengthened the prospects that as many as half of Hillary Clinton supporters will now support John McCain. Obama's inability to close the deal with Hillary supporters was a cold and now it is a serious flu. Instead of a celebration and focusing like a laser beam on the message of the convention top Obama aides have been worried about the concerns of both Clintons comparing Senator Clinton's aides involved in convention preparations to Japenese soldiers in the South Pacific who continued fighting after the War ended. I predict that the Obama campaign will have the lowest convention bounce in modern history and Democrats will begin the fall campaign in a quagmire of uncertainty about their candidiate and their message. Expect the candidiate of change to go increasingly negative which will compel more Democrats and Independents to vote for John McCain.

Jim Scarantino

Obama didn't really help himself by picking a senior Senator. Biden brings no excitement, no constitutency and no message. He does bring 35 years of legislative votes for McCain's camp to pick at. His pro-choice stances as a Catholic will cause a repeat of the same problems Kerry faced. Older Hispanics in New Mexico, already reluctant to support Obama, now have another excuse not to vote for him. Lastly, I think Biden is a poor person to put on the stump across the country on every topic possible. He is mush-mouthed, just like John Kerry was. I honestly cannot take listening to Biden for more than thirty seconds, before I become frustrated at having to do all the work translating what he won't say directly and concisely. The selection of Biden leaves open the door for McCain's pick to get the excitement in this cycle. I predict he will choose as his running mate the first woman ever to be on a Presidential ticket. In fact, I'd say count on it.

Margaret Montoya

I will resist my inclination to defend in a reflexive manner the choice made by Barack Obama.

Joe Biden brings some considerable strengths to the campaign, but, in my opinion, his support of the bankruptcy bill, together with his son Hunter's strong connections to the credit card companies that have benefited by that legislation, has tarnished his appeal for me.

Biden's sharp wit and quick ripostes will add a dimension of gotcha humor that may keep McCain off balance and poke fun at McCain's confusion and gaffes. Unlike Jim, I enjoy listening to Biden, especially when he is talking about policy options. I anticipate he will be effective in the debates and on the stump.

I couldn't disagree more with Jim about the choice issue. Adding a pro-life VP would have been disastrous in this year that has been highlighted by Hillary Clinton's candidacy and the registration of millions of younger voters. It may be true that some older folks may vote for president on this one issue. Most Latinas especially younger ones, like other women, support the right to abortion and more importantly will vote to protect access to contraception; both rights are at risk under McCain's promise of a "pro-life" administration.

Latinas (and Latinos) I know are greatly concerned about the economy, the war, Social Security, health care, and education, and they know that workable solutions to these intractable problems are proposed by the Democratic Party and not by the Republicans. If this election is contested on the basis of issues and policies and platforms, the electorate sides with Democratic positions. The question that remains is whether the Republicans will successfully "swiftboat" Obama.

Even if McCain chooses to add a woman to this ticket, this will not neutralize the harshly anti-woman policies that have been followed by the Republicans under George Bush. Republicans have opposed legislation that would have specifically addressed issues of concern to women: pay equity, increases to minimum wage (which primarily helps single moms), effective sex education. One of Joe Biden's signature accomplishments is the Violence Against Women Act which was a comprehensive approach to domestic violence.

Jim Scarantino

Problems already for Biden: the Archbishop of Denver has suggested he not take communion because of his positions on abortion. The message to Biden was reported late last night. I think the Catholic Church will be even more vocal in chastising pro-abortion Catholics than in 2004 when much of it was at the parish level, but not broadcast to the media. Pelosi got a stern upbraiding, as well.

I wasn't suggesting Obama should have selected a pro-choice running mate. That would have cost him his own party, which has adopted even stronger pro-abortion platform language than ever before (it actually calls for public funding of abortions and disses the entire pro-life wing of the Democratic Party). That's why Obama could not have selected Gov. Kaine of Virginia, one of the Democrats shining new stars and a strong pro-life advocate in his own state. But, by selecting a pro-abortion Catholic, Obama gives Catholics who are balking at supporting him for a number of reasons, particularly race, an easy excuse to justify their predisposition against him. They no longer need say "I won't support him because he's Black." They can now lean on the apostasy of his pro-abortion Catholic running mate.

I worked many long hours for the Kerry campaign in 2004. I spent much of that time in smaller NM counties. The parish priests were preaching against Kerry pretty openly, scoring him for defiance of a fundamental principle of the church's teaching. On election day, we saw tens of thousands of "missing" votes in rural Hispanic counties: no choice was stated for President on ballots that were otherwise completely filled out. On Election Day, I was supervising the vote protection effort on the ground in Socorro County, driving to all the polls all day long. We encountered many instances of older Hispanic couples voting together telling us they could not vote for Kerry because he supported abortion. It was worse because he was Catholic. A pro-life Protestant would not have caused the same problems for them.

State Senator Mary Jane Garcia recently was quoted in The Rocky Mountain News saying she doesn't know a Hispanic over age 50 who will vote for Obama. The reason is race. I have heard this also from Hispanic politicos working northern New Mexico. People with these sentiments won't likely admit their racism to pollsters or to strangers. The abortion issue will strengthen their resolve not to vote for Obama, and now gives them a socially acceptable reason to explain their decision.

Margaret Montoya

The Republican Party faces an enormous problem in the current election and in the future. For example, here is what the New Democratic Network reports in its latest statistical analysis, Hispanics Rising II, "Hispanics have voted in record numbers, tripling their turnout from the 2004 primaries and increasing their share of the vote in the Democratic primaries by 66%. Seventy-eight percent of Hispanics who voted in the presidential primaries this year have voted Democratic." (Unfortunately, we don't yet have any polls on NM Hispanics). Republican Party policies, rhetoric and image have alienated African Americans, Latinas/os and Native voters, especially younger ones. I have struggled to find data on the racial/ethnic demographics of the two parties but have been unable to find anything reliable. Suffice to say, that the Democrats are a vibrant diverse party that looks like the society it represents, and its representational practices, while cumbersome, have produced a convention that is widely inclusive of women, racial groups, sexual minorities and those with disabilities. The Republicans, despite some prominent minority faces (black, Latina/o), are still overwhelmingly a White party with policies that disfavor and burden African Americans, Latinas/os and Native peoples and tribes. (Just consider the GINI co-efficient, the most widely accepted measure of inequality. The U.S. now ranks among the most unequal of the developed societies.)

Jim continues to recite the meme (with no evidence to support it other than his personal testimony) that Hispanics won't vote for Obama even though the polling shows that we now back Obama two or three-to-one over McCain. In my opinion, media (including we on "The Line," with our modest contribution to the campaign chatter) have a responsibility to inform public discourse and to refrain from adding to the divisiveness of the ever-volatile subject of race. To say that someone won't vote for someone because of race is to peer into their psyche, their mental processes, strip away other legitimate rationales and give prominence to race as the rationale in a way that stigmatizes both the voter and the candidate.

One can decide to vote for or against someone based on their race for reasons that are entirely legitimate and moral. For example, I can decide to vote for another Latina (and describe it as voting for her because of "race") because I conclude that she shares fundamental values and life experiences (including those of being discriminated against) with me and thus is likely to share a worldview that will lead her to support, advocate for and vote for policies that will improve my life and that of my family. Similarly, I can decide to vote against her based on "race" because I conclude we don't share basic values or political preferences. In this sense, "race" is shorthand for sharing a set of collectivized historical, familial and personal narratives that inform the labels we use to classify the world around us. An illegitimate (and immoral) rationale for voting against someone based on their "race" is because I conclude s/he is intellectually or morally inferior. "Race" is a highly complex concept and, if it isn't defined, then the default definition is this illegitimate notion of rejecting people because of their physical appearance.

If Catholic voters decide not to support Obama and Biden because of the abortion issue, then that means they have made a policy-based decision which is exactly what they should be doing. I don't agree with them, but that's what an election is all about. Come November, I will NOT vote for John McCain (after all, I don't agree with his stand on almost every issue). He is also a white man. You can make the argument that I am voting on the basis of "race." However, this kind of causal sophistry is spurious and injurious to our nation's social fabric that has been repeatedly frayed by centuries of racial strife and misunderstanding that has too frequently been fed rather than resisted by the media.

Marco Gonzales

I strongly disagree with the idea that Obama has a lock on the Hispanic vote in America, and undoubtedly here in New Mexico:

http://thelatinojournal.blogspot.com/2008/07/western-state-latinos-crucial-to-mccain.html

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=190162

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/03/mccain-has-open.html

http://www.observer.com/2008/velazquez-warns-obama-mccains-support-among-latinos

And let's not forget, McCain does not need to have 51% of the Hispanic vote to win the election. He needs to pull somewhere near 40%. There is plenty of room, evidenced by these articles, for him to do this. Citing polls from left wing groups is smart politics, but the facts are that the Democrats are worried about McCain's ability to reach Hispanic voters.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/no_special_agenda_for_hispanic.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/11/politics/politico/main4336774.shtml

And and update on the GOP and VP predictions:

Jim Scarantino

August 28th
Heather Wilson for VP. We're hearing rumors swirling around Kay Bailey Hutchinson. But I also hear the pro-life voices in the GOP, which is most of the party, does not like the idea of someone who supports Roe v. Wade being one heart beat away from appointing a Supreme Court Justice. I mentioned Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska previously. But I've since learned there is a small scandal brewing up north about allegations she retaliated against a former brother-in-law by getting him fired from the state police. Palin is a remarkable woman, but nobody needs a black eye coming into a fight. So here's my suggestion to McCain for a strong, experienced, smart, tough woman who will be accepted by the pro-life wing of the GOP and who can deliver a swing state: Heather Wilson. Hey, she's available, to boot. And she probably knows more about foreign policy and can explain herself better than her debating partner, Joe Biden.