Decades of Assimilation | Newsweek Periscope

CAMPAIGN 2008
A New Latino Mix
Arian Campo-Flores 9/30/2008 12:00:00 AM
At a Puerto Rican community center in Orlando two weeks ago, a parade of Republican luminaries took the stage to plug their presidential candidate en español. "John McCain es nuestro amigo," said John Quiñones, an Osceola County commissioner born in Puerto Rico ("John McCain is our friend"). "El país primero antes que la ambición personal," declared U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez ("Country first before personal ambition"). There, too, were former Florida Governors Jeb Bush and Bob Martinez and current Governor Charlie Crist. When McCain himself arrived, he rattled off a litany of proposals tailored to the audience. He pledged his support for a referendum on Puerto Rican statehood. He eulogized the sacrifice of Latinos who served in the military. And he exalted the "cultural input" and "vitality" of Hispanics across the country. Then he concluded with the bottom line: "We have to win Florida."
The Real Economic Scorecard
Robert J. Samuelson 9/3/2008 12:00:00 AM
Just last week, the Census Bureau released its annual study of household incomes, poverty and health insurance -- often called the nation's "economic report card." Its hard numbers seemed to confirm how many Americans feel. Sure, we're prosperous, but prosperity is fraying. Except for the rich, living standards are stagnant. Poverty is up; health insurance coverage is down. Naturally, both Barack Obama and John McCain seized upon the report to claim that their policies would restore progress.
IMMIGRATION
Why Won’t Juan Come to the Phone?
Jessica Ramirez and Holly Bailey 7/19/2008 12:00:00 AM
The job of Juan Hernandez is to win support for John McCain, particularly Latino votes. So it may seem odd that the campaign doesn't want its national director of Hispanic outreach to get any press. Repeated NEWSWEEK requests to interview Hernandez have been rebuffed or ignored. When a reporter suggested talking to Hernandez at a convention of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, where Hernandez was slated to appear June 28, his name was suddenly removed from the list of scheduled speakers. A NALEO spokesman, Eric Wagner, says someone from the McCain campaign called and asked to replace him, but didn't offer an explanation. (A McCain aide, who refused to be quoted discussing internal campaign strategy, later told NEWSWEEK that the campaign had never signed off on Hernandez as a speaker.)
The Candor Gap
Robert J. Samuelson 7/9/2008 12:00:00 AM
It is one of our fondest political myths that elections allow us collectively to settle the "big issues." The truth is that there's often a bipartisan consensus to avoid the big issues, because they involve unpopular choices and conflicts. Elections become exercises in mass evasion; that certainly applies so far to the 2008 campaign. A case in point is America's population transformation. Few issues matter more for the country's future--yet it's mostly ignored.
NEXT 2008 | IMMIGRATION
The Rise of a New American Underclass
Ellis Cose
Immigration has always evoked outsize, even irrational, reactions. But the irony of this presidential season is that candidates are getting all worked up over an issue about which they largely agree. The major candidates have effectively reached consensus that America should provide a path to citizenship (just don't call it "amnesty") for many now in the shadows, while more effectively discouraging illegal immigration. This ideally would be done with the help of the Mexican government, which also has a stake in a rational immigration policy. Jorge Castañeda, Mexico's former foreign minister, believes we may be at a historical pass. There is "a small but sufficient window of opportunity, a chance that can be seized just before the 2008 election, or just after it" for a bold, visionary step in immigration policy, he argues in his new book, "Ex Mex." Yet even a coherent immigration scheme would take us only so far in answering the key questions that this—and every—U.S. immigration debate has raised: What does it mean to be an American? How do we shape our constituent parts into a cohesive whole?
CAMPAIGN 2008
Heaven Help Them Decide
Arian Campo-Flores
Going back to Ronald Reagan, the Rev. Wilfredo De Jesús—the senior pastor of a 4,500-member Hispanic evangelical church in Chicago—has pulled the lever for Republicans in presidential elections. "I always voted on the issue of abortion and the sanctity of marriage," he says. This time, though, Sen. Barack Obama's message of faith and social justice, combined with strident GOP rhetoric on illegal immigration, has persuaded him to endorse the Democrat. That switch illustrates the extent to which the Latino evangelical vote is in play—a development that could prove decisive on Nov. 4. Though polls show Obama beating Sen. John McCain among Hispanics as a whole by roughly 30 points, Hispanic evangelicals are a tougher sell. In 2004, 63 percent of them voted for President Bush.