Senator Hillary Clinton courted the Latino vote for almost a full year and last night Latino’s saved Super Tuesday for her. Yesterday over 70% of Latino voters overall endorsed the Senator from New York.

The casa that Hillary built could not be stormed by the Knights of Camelot, charmed by anglicizing “Si Se Puede” or persuaded by Spanish language ads.

This is important and here is why:

The Democratic establishment consultant class has long believed that the Latino voter is such a “dependable” “progressive” Democratic vote that it does not deserve respect or attention. The beltway bandits, the State capitol political hacks, and the big city operatives, have always spent the least amount of effort in both time and money courting the Latino vote. Unlike the grand transformational aspects of the Obama candidacy the Obama campaigns’ approach to the Latino vote is basically old school D.C. politics as usual. Last night proved, I hope once and for all, that what was once believed to work with Latinos cannot be relied on any longer.

Washington D.C. consultants need to know that you can’t parachute in a Senator Ted Kennedy, and drop a boat load full of last minute Spanish language media ads ten days before an election, and hope to move any significant block of the Latino electorate.

It is evident that the vast majority of Latinos were unmoved by the last minute approach and the Democratic Party and America is better off for it. I say we are better off not necessarily because of the electoral outcome, but because holding on to Latinos is what the Dems need to learn to do in order to secure lasting majorities. Apparently what used to work with Latinos no longer does and the beltway bandits need to see it, feel it, and integrate it.

In the General Election Latinos will have a choice between McCain and a Democrat. Any belief that Latinos will not vote for McCain needs to be shelved immediately, even if the winner is Clinton. All McCain needs in order to retain the White House for the GOP is about 33% of the Latino vote. McCain is well positioned to regain the Latino advantage that Bush has lost. A “traditional” DC insider last minute approach to Latino’s by the eventual Democratic nominee will hand the White House over to the Repubs.

Last year I received a call from a top Obama operative after I wrote a post on the candidates’ lack of access to Latino journalists. I was told that the Obama campaign understood the problem, and they were working on it. At that time, Obama had banked more money than Clinton, but the operative stated that the campaign did not have the money to spend on a Latino press staffer. I advised him to be more proactive and make the investment. The Obama campaign did eventually invest in a Latino press specialist, only a handful of days before Super Tuesday.

So…can we as Dems in the General Election campaign do better than that? Si Se..,.er, um,…I mean ….Yes we can.

Popularity: 2% [?]