Partisan Latino leadership strips our political power

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With all the impact that the NALEO conference this past week in Orlando could have on not just the Latino vote but on Hispanic leadership and the media’s – heck, the world’s – perception of our political community, it’s sad that they sorta blew it.

The comments and opinions coming out of what is known as the Latino political convention in Orlando last week were predictably and sadly so along party lines that Ladra, there to cover the event as senior editor of VOXXI.com, could almost foretell word for word what some legislators and electeds would say before they said it. Is this what we can expect from our Latino leadership?

Refreshingly, however, there was some mild but authentic party crossover with two speakers who won over the hearts – or, better said, softened the hearts — of some of the opposite party members present at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officers; 29^th annual conference.

Two bad neither of them are running for president.

And, probably too bad for the majority Democrat NALEO crowd, both of them are Republicans.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush– who peppered his address about education, a huge Latino issue before polarizing immigration came along, with Spanish words and just seems to get it — got a standing ovation from almost the entire room of more than 600 Hispanic leaders.

And U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio almost made a few San Antonio Dems cry (they may have fought the tears off for fear of ridicule) with his brutally honest, heartfelt speech in which he blamed both parties for making immigration a political football and had the courage to say that neither would resolve the issue as long as it is a conduit for contributions and votes.

But the reactions from our Hispanic electeds to speeches by President Barack Obama and the “speaker from yesterday,” as the POTUS called Mitt Romney, were so predictably along party lines that it almost seemed scripted by the buzzing presidential campaign staffers that stood on the sidelines as Latino legislators provided TV soundbites.

The same way that the parties use immigration as a campaign funding and get-out-the-vote tool, as Sen. Rubio so rightfully illuminated, they shepherd the troops — like lambs to the slaughter — to the grateful journalists, myself included, who strive to get balanced coverage. Obama had National Latino Vote Deputy Director Alida M. Garcia and the Democrat National Committee’s Senior Advisor for Hispanic Affairs Juan Sepulveda. The Mitt Romney campaign had former Attorney General of Puerto Rico José Fuentes from the “Juntos Con Romney” Hispanic Steering Committee, Florida Spokeswoman and political consultant Ana Carbonell and media handler Yohanna de la Torre, and Alexandra Franceschi, specialty media press secretary for the Republican National Committee. And, really, I honestly thanked Garcia and de la Torre both for making my job easier and helping me find voices from across the country who could comment on what the next president of the United States – whoever it turns out to be – said.

But balanced coverage that is predictable along party lines serves nobody. It waters down our political strength as a voting bloc, it lowers our Latino leverage collectively, and it makes a mockery of our representation.

Because if Republican Hispanic leaders always forgive Romney’s position on the “handout,” as he calls the DREAM Act, “self-deportation” and his seeming lack of desire to really connect with us, no matter what, he’s not going to consider anything else. And if Democrat Hispanic leaders always forgive Obama’s broken promises and obvious political pandering with terribly limited carrots five months before the 2012 presidential election that insult our intelligence and show us much disrespect, no matter what, then he has no motivation to come through.

In other words, if we give away our support to the candidate with the right letter after his name, no matter what, we are giving away our political power.

Maybe Hispanic voters won’t be as partisan, but I doubt it. After all, the leaders who spoke and commented about the speeches at the NALEO conference will go back to their communities and influence thousands of them.

Ladra predicts it will be along party lines.