Mexico |
Mexicans Spurn McCain’s Pandering
Prefer Hillary (But They’ll Settle For Obama)
by Allan Wall 4/8/08 |
Who do Mexicans want as the next U.S. president?
All three major candidates (John
McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama) have appalling records on immigration
(see here) which must make Mexico’s elite happy. All
three have pandered to Hispanics—by, among other things,
appearing in the Spanish-language Univision
debates. And any of the three can be expected to
push for an amnesty.
Nevertheless, of the three, John McCain has pandered
more, and longer, and has proven again and again his contempt for US immigration laws. McCain defended the illegal alien marches of 2006. He
opposed English Only laws and efforts to assimilate
immigrants generally. He also seems fonder of Hispanic
culture than traditional American culture: in one
speech, he said the
U.S. is better off not having a common culture,
while in another, to Hispanic congressmen, he said that
the Hispanic blood and culture was a "noble cause" that enriched the country. McCains’s Hispanic outreach director, Juan
Hernandez, a longtime amnesty agitator, is actually a U.S.-Mexican citizen and a former Mexican cabinet
minister!
Contributor
Allan
Wall
Allan Wall recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. He currently resides in Mexico, where he has lived since 1991. He can be reached via e-mail at allan39@prodigy.net.mx [go to Wall index] |
So by any objective standard, McCain has pandered
more to Mexico and Hispanics than either Hillary or
Obama.
Then McCain must be very popular in Mexico, right?
Maybe he should be—but he’s not.
A recent poll reported March 21 by El Universal, Mexico’s paper of record, asked which of
the three candidates—John McCain, Hillary Clinton,
Barack Obama—would be better for Mexico.
The results: Hillary Clinton got 41% of the Mexican
vote. Obama was in second place, with 27% of the vote.
And John McCain? He got a whopping 8% of the vote!
Even Universal noticed the irony:
"The senator and
certain Republican presidential candidate John McCain
has spent the past 25 years of his life in the U.S.
Congress as a frequent voice in favor of good relations
between his country and Mexico. But a poll indicates
that not only do Mexicans prefer Hillary Clinton over
McCain and his Democratic competitor Barack Obama, but
the belief that either of the Democrats would give a
greater impetus to a migratory reform (amnesty, etc.)
than McCain, who besides having been one of the
co-sponsors of a failed proposal last year, also was the
target of harsh criticisms from his party for his stance
in favor of migrants." [Mexicanos
prefieren a Hillary, El Universal, March
21, 2008.]
Personally, I’m not surprised that Hillary won a
plurality of those polled. Most of Mexicans’ knowledge
of the U.S. is gained from translations of the U.S.
MainStream Media (MSM), which is overwhelmingly
Democratic. Bill Clinton was popular in Mexico, and was
appreciated for the big bank bailout in the mid-1990s.
(Republican leaders also supported it but didn’t get any
credit in Mexico. VDARE.COM editor Peter Brimelow, in contrast, suggested in Forbes Magazine that the U.S. would be better off simply buying Baja). And Hillary’s
autobiography, translated to Spanish, did well here.
Many Mexicans are Hillary fans.
In fact, in that same Mexican poll, Hillary had 98%
name recognition. Obama and McCain tied at 73%.
Some 74% of those polled had a "very good" opinion of Mrs. Clinton, 73% had a "very good" opinion of Obama, while only 41% had a "very good" opinion of McCain.
I found out years ago that Democrats have a better
image in Mexicans than Republicans, as I wrote in my very first VDARE.COM article.
Part of it because of the U.S. MSM (see above). But
also, Mexico is just a more left-wing country than the
U.S. Republicans are seen as the "party of the rich" and as "anti-Mexican". For example, a Mexican
high school student recently informed me with complete
confidence (I’m an American, remember) that Republicans treat Mexicans badly.
Given Mexican immigrants’ predisposition to the
Democratic party, it makes perfect sense for Democratic
party leaders to import more Mexicans. So why do
Republican leaders want to import more Democratic
voters?
Besides better name recognition, the Mexican media
comes up with another reason Mexicans may prefer
Hillary—solidarity with Hispanics in the U.S.. As Universal put it:
" In some measure the
good impression that Mexicans have of Clinton is due to
the fact that she is more well-known and maybe as an
increased reflection of the favorable image that the
senator for New York has among Hispanics of the United
States, who have overwhelmingly voted
for her."
And get this, from the same article:
"….[U.S.] Hispanics
tend to consider that Obama.. of an African father and Anglo-Saxon mother, who has the majority support of
the Afro-Americans, is going to favor ‘his’ group [blacks]
to the detriment of the Latinos."
This is a reference to the emerging Black-Hispanic
rivalry in the United States. It reminds me of a recent report, bluntly entitled "Minorities
don’t trust each other" [Agence France-Presse, Dec 12, 2007], of a poll in which 44% of Hispanics and
47% of Asians reported being "afraid of
African-Americans because they are responsible for most
of the crime". Meanwhile, over 50% of blacks and 46%
of Hispanics reported being treated with disrespect by
Asian business owners. Half of blacks polled said
immigrants from Latin America "are taking jobs,
housing and political power away from the black
community". And, "All three ethnic groups viewed
white Americans in a more favorable light than they did
members of another minority."
In fact, Hispanics were more likely to say so than
the other two groups:
"Sixty-one percent of
Hispanics, 54 percent of Asians and 47 percent of
African-Americans said they would rather do business
with whites than members of the other two groups."
It sounds like white Americans are holding the
country together, albeit tenuously. Which raises the
question: what’s going to happen if whites lose their majority status?
In contrast, the attitude of Mexicans (in Mexico)
towards blacks is mostly theoretical. Traditionally,
Mexicans have sympathized from afar with American
blacks. But most Mexicans don’t have much contact with
people who are recognizably black. When they do, there are
complaints of discrimination—by Haitian refugees
residing in Mexico, and by the small minority of
recognizably black Mexicans, who mainly live on the
Pacific Coast.
Certainly, Mexicans do not share the same PC
inhibitions about blacks that Americans do. They still
tell jokes that would land them in big trouble north of
the border. For example, previous president Vicente Fox, in one of his never-ending immigration
spiels, said that "There is no doubt that Mexicans…
are doing jobs that not even blacks want to do there in the United
States." This forced the Mexican president to
submit to an American ritual: a ceremonial groveling
meeting with Jesse Jackson! [Mexican
leader criticized for comment on blacks CNN May 14th,
2005]
That was followed a few months later by the release
of a set of stamps honoring Memin Pinguin, the stereotypically black Cuban protagonist of a
long-running Mexican comic book. Even LULAC and the
National Council of the Race criticized the Mexican
government over this one. [Mexican
Stamp sets off a new racial fracas James C.
McKinley, Jr. , International Herald Tribune,
July 1st, 2005]
What was interesting was Fox’s absolute cluelessness.
After playing the race card with the United States in
defense of illegals in the U.S., he seemed flabbergasted
by the response from black leaders in the U.S.
Now back to the Universal poll. As far as the
renegotiation of NAFTA, 31% think Clinton is in favor,
21% think Obama is in favor, and 9% think McCain favors
it.
Some 28% of those polled believe Obama has "good
proposals" for improving U.S.-Mexican relations,
while 27% believe the same about McCain. Oddly, only 10%
believed that about Hillary Clinton. However, 22% of
Mexicans polled thought Hillary would be a better
president for Mexico because she’s a woman!
And that, by the way, is essentially what former
president Vicente Fox said on one of his U.S. meddling tours—that
he supports Hillary for president because she’s a woman,
and since women bear children, they think about the
future more and that makes them good leaders.
Which raises another interesting point. At the risk
of generalizing, Mexicans are considered more male
chauvinist than American men. But now Mexicans are
supporting Hillary. Why?
There are several factors at work. For one thing, the
Mexican media and academia systematically promote
feminism. The Spanish language has even been affected.
President Calderon and former president Fox are both
fond of utilizing the rather bulky feminist construction "mexicanos y mexicanas", rather than the
traditional "mexicanos" which refers to
both men and women.
Mexicans have become quite accustomed to women
political leaders. Currently Mexico has a female foreign
minister, ( Patricia Espinosa), Speaker of the House (Ruth
Zavaleta ) and PRI party president (Beatriz
Paredes). Then there’s Elba Esther Gordillo , leader of the powerful SNTE
teachers’ union, which is one of the biggest impediments
to reforming Mexican public education. (Like our NEA). And, we can’t forget, Vicente Fox’s wife Marta
Sahagun, whom some likened to Hillary, and who was also
said to harbor presidential ambitions.
Some of these women have proven that, in the
interests of equality, they can be just as incompetent
and corrupt as a male politician—notably SNTE’s Elba
Esther Gordillo, widely believed to have profited
through corrupt practices.
Besides, although the Mexicans polled favor Hillary
over Obama, I have no doubt that should Obama win the
Democratic nomination, a later poll will reveal that
Mexicans prefer an Obama presidency over a McCain
presidency.
Sure, McCain has pandered to Mexicans. But their
preference for the Democratic party will trump McCain’s
pandering.
Some prominent Mexicans are already committed to
Obama. When I showed my wife the bilingual Obama video "We Are The Ones", which I discussed in a
VDARE.COM blog entry here, she pointed out that one of the Obama fans was
Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, and sure enough, it
was. Kate del Castillo is the one in the video who says
(in Spanish) "Esta es nuestra América, mi América,
tu América" which translates to "This is our
America, my America, your America".
Except that you have to understand that América doesn’t have the same connotation that "America" has for an English-speaking American. In Spanish it
means the whole continent, as reconquista-type
protestors have reminded us with their insulting slogan "America is a continent and not a country". (For
more on the America/América question, see here ).
And yet, here’s Kate del Castillo, a Mexican citizen,
telling us who to vote for. What if an American citizen movie star tried to intervene in Mexican politics?
Several Mexican pundits have also come out in favor
of Obama. An analysis/opinion piece by Jaime Martinez Veloz was triumphantly entitled "Obama the Hope of Latin America"[Obama
la Esperanza de América Latina, La Jornada, February 15, 2008] I blogged
about it here .
Some highlights include:
"From his
African-American origin, he [Obama] launches a
motto of unity for the continent: ‘There is not a white
America, an Afro-American America and an Hispanic
America, there is only one America.’… For our fellow
Mexicans and Latino brothers in the United States he [Obama]
has a proposal: ‘I represent the people who until now
have been marginalized. I will make sure that that those
people have access to medical care and education, including the undocumented.’…the importance of Obama’s message
arrives to all the corners of the United States and Latin America, where its definitions and positions
outline a new relationship and a better understanding
between our countries . Throughout its history Latin
America has not been an enemy of the United States, but
the United States has been to our countries…Whatever
comes to pass (or doesn’t) in the United States affects
our countries, that’s why with all our strength we
should create a Latin Force behind Senator Barack Obama.
I am convinced we have capability of doing so."
Another pro-Obama opinion piece, by Luis Linares, is
entitled "Barack
Oama and Change". [Barack
Obama y el Cambio, Luis Linares Zapata, La
Jornada, Feb. 13th, 2008]
It goes on and on about
how great Obama is and concludes that
"If Barack wins the
presidency of the United States, he will be the first
politician of the left (in the U.S. ideological context,
an extreme liberal) of that country and another sign of
the present and future of the continent."
Note that Linares recognizes that Obama is an “extreme liberal”—and supports him because of it.
Obama has his critics too. In El Universal, Esteban Moctezuma penned an editorial entitled Obama Fox, [El Universal, Feb. 22,
2008]likening Obama to former Mexican president Vicente
Fox—not a compliment.
Moctezuma wrote that Hillary would be a better U.S.
president, but that she is too boring for the campaign,
and thus is being beaten by Obama’s style and
contradictory demagogic promises.
Obama is winning, Moctezuma writes, because "..in
the face of the deprivation and desperation of a
multitude of Americans , who feel that they have even
lost their identity, Barack builds for them a very
attractive imaginary world…"
Moctezuma closes with his Obama-Fox comparison–
"Obama reminds me of
Fox ! It brings me back to the days in which, in the
morning [Fox] would say to the tenants that frozen rents were an act of social justice and in
the afternoon to the landlords, that frozen rents should
disappear ."
Bottom line: all the evidence indicates that Mexicans
prefer a Democratic candidate (Hillary if possible, or
Obama as second-choice) to John McCain.
Conclusion, not for the first time: pandering doesn’t pay.
And: Mexico and the U.S. are profoundly different countries. We cannot expect
Mexicans to see things the American way. CRO
copyright
2008 Allan Wall
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