The Rainbow Myth
Latinos, Blacks May Part at the Polls
October 9, 2002

By Tamar Jacoby

The 30-second TV spot is titled “Oficiales,” but an even better name would be “The Rainbow Coalition.” Against a rapid montage of black and brown faces, a parade of Latino elected officials appear before the camera speaking in Spanish and endorsing Carl McCall. “He’s our candidate . . . . He understands our problems . . . . He deserves our vote,” they say one after the other. The underlying assumption is as obvious as the droning pronoun: blacks and browns have the same issues politically, and this year, as in years past, whites should expect them to vote as one.

In fact, that’s highly unlikely — and the truth is there is no meaningful rainbow coalition in New York. A few black and Latino leaders have been acting in concert in recent years, and many of the city’s Latino elected officials have lined up behind Mr. McCall. But black and brown voters are not automatically in sync — far from it — and Governor Pataki is on his way to what may be an astonishing showing among Latinos.

Fantasies (and fears) of a black-brown coalition go back many years, but they have intensified in the last decade as the city’s Hispanic population spiked upward and minority leaders made a show of unity. David Dinkins, who called the would-be alliance the “gorgeous mosaic,” made it the central metaphor of his 1989 campaign. Then in the late-90s, the romance seemed to take off in earnest as the shooting of Amadou Diallo sparked anti-police protests citywide, and black and Latino spokesmen found themselves manning the barricades together. The idea played insidiously into white New Yorkers’ racial stereotypes. And no one was surprised when the Rev. Al Sharpton and Bronx Democratic leader Roberto Ramirez started getting arrested together at demonstrations. (The culminating moment, meant to seal the pact forever: May 2001, when they came home together in handcuffs from protesting the Navy’s bombing exercises on the island of Vieques.)

The 2001 mayoral campaign was thought by many to cement the alliance. Mr. Sharpton, Mr. Ramirez, powerful union leader Dennis Rivera, Dinkins mastermind Bill Lynch and most of the city’s better known black and Latino elected officials came together to back the candidacy of Fernando Ferrer. The fact that they couldn’t deliver for him did little to tarnish the rainbow myth, and this year’s gubernatorial contest was expected to be their triumphant comeback: as blacks backed a Hispanic candidate last year, so now Hispanics would back a black, and together they would send Mr. McCall to Albany. That’s the hope, anyway, and Mr. Ramirez and his network — a wide web of mostly Latino consultants, pollsters, media people and the like — are playing a prominent role in the McCall campaign. (Mr. Ramirez, also now a key strategist in Mr. Sharpton’s run for president, co-produced the “Oficiales” ad, for example.)

The appeal of a black-brown coalition is obvious enough: together, blacks and Latinos make up 54% of the New York City population and nearly a third of statewide voters. (Blacks are expected to account for 22% of those who will cast ballots next month, Latinos 8%.) Similarly poor and disenfranchised, the two groups are thought to have similar interests, and both are seen as loyally wedded to the Democratic Party.

But the truth is that even in its supposed heyday, the gorgeous mosaic was more wish than reality. New York Hispanic voters have never assumed that their political interests ran parallel with blacks’: most did not vote for Jesse Jackson when he first ran for president, for example, and before the Dinkins era, citywide elections often produced bitter conflicts. (Just ask any political junkie about the bad blood between Herman Badillo and Percy Sutton or Denny Farrell.) Depending on which poll you trust (ABC’s or CBS/The New York Times’s), Rudolph Giuliani snagged between a quarter and a third of the Latino vote even in the year Mr. Dinkins beat him. And the share of Latinos pulling the lever for the GOP has risen steadily in every mayoral election since then: Mr. Giuliani polled 38% of the Hispanic vote in 1993, 42% in 1997 and Mike Bloomberg won an astounding 47% last year.

True, both groups tend to be poorer than whites and, like many poor people, tend to look to the government to help them, putting them, in that sense at least, in the liberal column. But their similar positions at the bottom of the ladder also make them rivals, and a sharpening competition for political spoils is sparking resentment in both communities. Latinos gripe, for example, that the flood of development money pouring into the city in recent years (through the federal Empowerment Zone and other projects) has benefited black neighborhoods disproportionately. Meanwhile, blacks, who hold far more than their share of civil-service jobs, are worried that Latinos, with far less than their share, are gaining ground. Redistricting frequently pits one group against the other. And this simmering rivalry can only grow hotter now that the rapidly multiplying Latino population, traditionally far less organized and influential, has outstripped blacks numerically — something the city’s black elite is well aware of. (Hence their intensified efforts to co-opt Latino leaders in a “coalition.”)

When it comes to political substance, the two groups are similar but not identical. One of the most striking gaps is on law-enforcement issues. According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, roughly three quarters of Latinos (compared to just over half of blacks) approve of the job the city police are doing, and 51% (compared to 29% of blacks) think of the cops as “friends” rather than “enemies.” Then there’s the difference in their reactions to strong conservative politicians — particularly Mr. Giuliani and George W. Bush. If Rudy were to run against Mr. Bloomberg for mayor in 2005 (an unlikely prospect, but never mind), blacks would elect one man, Hispanics the other — each by overwhelming margins. (In fact, according to recent polls, Latinos like Mr. Giuliani even better than whites do.) And poll after poll shows President Bush to be deeply popular among Hispanics, while largely suspect in the black community.

But even more important, according to insiders, is the difference in the two groups’ attachment to the Democratic Party. Blacks, in New York as elsewhere, feel that belonging to the party has worked for them: the Harlem organization is a well-oiled machine that has been delivering reliably for over 40 years now, elevating politicians and creating millionaires — from powerful congressman Charles Rangel to media mogul Percy Sutton. Latinos can’t make anything like the same claim. Whether because of their own lack of organization or because they’ve been eclipsed by blacks or both, they feel they have little to show for their partisan loyalty. Leader after leader talks about how they feel taken for granted — and according to observers, even the rank and file relish the idea of emerging now as a swing vote. “We feel the Democrats have dissed us, and it feels great to be courted by the other party,” says Angelo Falcon, director of the policy arm of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and anything but a conservative. “The difference between us and the black community is that Latinos are up for grabs.”

It’s an opportunity that Mr. Pataki has seized upon and pursued brilliantly, both as governor and as candidate. He has used the power of his office to dole out favors, large and small, to every conceivable Latino constituency: from an $1.8 million pay-raise for hospital workers, many of whom are Hispanic, to, on several occasions, sending the state national guard to Caribbean and South American countries devastated by natural disasters. Among the most appreciated gestures, the governor put his prestige to use in getting the Navy out of Vieques; he has also made it easier for illegal immigrants to send their children to state colleges. The more targeted the token act, the better: realizing for example that many New York livery cab drivers are Dominican, he has imposed tougher penalties for the murder of livery drivers — thereby all but guaranteeing himself a huge chunk of the Dominican vote. But most important, according to insiders, is the simple — and unflagging — show of respect: the visits to Latino neighborhoods, the ads in Spanish, the consultations with Hispanic leaders and other small, attentive acts of goodwill. As State Senator Olga Mendez puts it: “Finally, for once, we feel we count.”

Just what percentage of the Latino vote can Mr. Pataki hope to capture? Estimates range between a third and a half, and some people are predicting an outright win. Among recent polls, Quinnipiac has him beating Mr. McCall by 57 to 33% of registered Latinos (while no survey, by any organization, has blacks giving the governor any more than 15 to 20%). This is probably too much to hope for: elections have a way of tightening up as they get closer. But even 40% of the Latino vote would be a dramatic tally for Mr. Pataki.

Would Mr. Pataki’s success have consequences for President Bush and others also planning to woo the Latino electorate? It would be a mistake to read too much into it. After all, this isn’t mainly a vote about issues — and does not mean that most New York Latinos are becoming conservatives.

Still, there’s no question it would be good for the Republican Party. To the degree it means that they are genuinely up for grabs — and will thus be courted by both parties — it’s also good for Latinos. But perhaps most important, in the long run, surely it is good for America — because of what it says about how Latinos are assimilating, choosing to be part of the mainstream, whether Democratic or Republican, rather than an alienated racial fringe.

Tamar Jacoby is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

©2002 New York Sun

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