Why 90s were Great for Progressive Electoral Efforts

uswatl at ibm.net uswatl at ibm.net
Sat Nov 14 14:39:35 PST 1998


Dear Doug,

There was an interesting story in the Nation a couple of weeks ago about southern California politics and the so-called Latino vote. One of the people interviewed was the Republican chairman of Orange Co. a Tom Flores. The picture Flores painted to the Nation interviewer was of a Republican party playing to the Roman Catholic tendencies of the Latino voters and at the same time of seducing Latino leadership by showing them the good life. This seems to be a generally developing Republican strategy nationally from what I am told. The Republicans have the money to play this game.

Sincerely, Tom L.

Doug Henwood wrote:


> Max Sawicky wrote:
>
> >Those suspicious of economic populism are of
> >little political consequence, as far as left
> >politics are concerned. I have no doubt that
> >blacks and latinos would be the first to jump
> >on board an economic populist movement which
> >white workers were strongly supporting and even
> >leading. Only the p-b left and a few middle
> >class civil rights types will squawk about some
> >issues being demoted in rank. Because blacks
> >and latinos are so overwhelmingly working class,
> >they will understand that class legislation is
> >in their interest, even if it doesn't speak to
> >the entirety of their interests. By contrast,
> >it seems clear that the present course of
> >de facto separation isn't getting them anywhere.
>
> Why do you frame this as an either/or thing? Don't you think "race" has
> something to do with why so many working-class whites vote Republican? If
> we don't talk about race, will it go away? If you want it to go away, your
> very talking about it reinforces the concept.
>
> Doug



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