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 Editorials | Opinions | January 2007 
Is America Ready for a Hispanic President?
 Ruben Navarrette Jr - San Diego Union-Tribune
| | The nation's only Hispanic governor pitches himself as the best of both worlds — a leader who puts actions before words and who can heal a divided country. |
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson had a hint of boyish excitement in his voice, as if he had just done something grand. He had. In fact, as announcements go, they don't come any grander. Richardson and I spoke Sunday morning, just a couple of hours after he announced — on ABC News' "This Week" — that he was setting up a presidential exploratory committee.
He is out to become the first Hispanic president of the United States, and he's the first Hispanic to make a serious run at the office.
For my parents' generation of Mexican-Americans — who attended segregated schools, were paddled for speaking Spanish, were discouraged from going to college and were denied jobs and promotions — this is a day that many thought they'd never live to see. And it's worth savoring.
Trying to gauge support for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, pollsters and pundits have spent months asking: Is the country ready for a woman or an African-American to be president?
How 20th century. What good is it to be the nation's largest minority if political observers and the media still act as if they didn't get the memo?
OK, I'll ask the question: Is America ready for a Hispanic president?
The governor thinks so. It's not that he believes anyone should vote for him just because he is Hispanic. He thinks people should vote for the most qualified person. And the way he sees it, that person happens to be Hispanic.
Richardson said on television that he won't "run as a Hispanic candidate" but as an American who is "proud to be Hispanic." But is that even possible when so many Americans are at each other's throats over immigration, language and assimilation?
The candidate doesn't see an obstacle but an opportunity.
"I can bring people together," he told me.
The governor acknowledged that the immigration issue is the great unknown and that he isn't sure whether it would help or hurt his chances. The answer, he said, could depend on whether Republicans use it as a "wedge issue." If that happens, he said, the tactic will "backfire on them again" as it did during the congressional debate over immigration last year.
The way Richardson sees it, the crowded field of 2008 presidential hopefuls breaks down into those who talk versus those who do, those who divide versus those who heal. The nation's only Hispanic governor pitches himself as the best of both worlds — a leader who puts actions before words and who can heal a divided country. He insists that it's his experience — as a member of Congress, U.N. ambassador, U.S. energy secretary and governor of New Mexico — that makes him the best choice.
"If you look at some of the major challenges facing the country," he said, "I've already done some of those things."
Among those things, the two-term governor says, are cutting taxes, creating jobs, improving education and expanding health care. Add in a thick foreign policy portfolio that includes serving as an envoy to Sudan and North Korea and orchestrating humanitarian efforts in bleak corners such as Darfur. Richardson also loves the game of politics and he's good at it. He's likable and bright and charismatic. And he'll need all those gifts and more.
A CNN poll of registered Democratic voters found just 2 percent inclined to vote for Richardson, leaving him far behind Clinton, Obama and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.
Speaking of Obama, I asked Richardson if he felt any sort of kinship with the Illinois senator, given that they each come from bicultural backgrounds. Obama has an American mother and African father. Richardson has an American father and a Mexican mother.
"Yeah, a little bit," he said, intrigued by the comparison.
Both men are out to make history and yet each enjoys a crossover appeal that goes far beyond the confines of his racial or ethnic group.
Personally, I'd like to see Richardson tap into what Obama has discovered — this discontent that many Americans feel with politics as usual, red states and blue states, polarization, agendas dictated by the extremes and so on.
A lot of people are tired of that nonsense. Obama sees it because he has fresh eyes, having only been on the national stage for a short time. Could it be that the longer you stay in politics, the less likely you are to see its imperfections?
Bill Richardson has been on stage much longer. Hopefully, the experience hasn't hurt his vision.
Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a columnist and editorial board member of The San Diego Union Tribune. ruben.navarrette@@uniontrib.com |
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