Minority voting power takes center stage

In 2004, George Bush reached out to Hispanic voters and got a GOP-record 44 percent of the Latino vote by some exit poll estimates. But he won Nevada by around 20,000 votes, and the Democrats have been registering Latinos there by the thousands.

The first two Fridays of each month, the Democratic party sets up voter-registration tables outside the federal court chamber in Las Vegas where new citizens are sworn in.

"We average about a hundred every Friday," said Andres Ramirez, Latino outreach coordinator for the state party. "From time to time, we'll get a thousand a week."

Latino registration rates in the state have risen from just 4 percent in 1996 to more than 10 percent. Given the "very anti-immigrant" stances taken by the state GOP, which adopted an English-only platform that would deny citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegals, Ramirez is confident that most of those political newcomers will be voting Democratic.

Albert Ambiz, a naturalized citizen born in Guadalajara, Mexico, is registered Republican. But this week, as he watched Clinton canvass his heavily Hispanic neighborhood on Las Vegas' East Side, he said though he was still leaning Republican, he wasn't sure which party he would caucus with on the 19th.

The 38-year-old electrical foreman, stepping off the sidewalk to let Clinton and a pursuing pack of reporters pass by, said on immigration, his party and its messengers were guilty of "Hate, to the core."

"They see us as just taking from the system," he said. "But the reality is, even the illegals, they do put in more then they take out."

If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, Segura and others wonder what effect "black-brown competition" will have on the Latino vote this fall. Segura agrees with Grofman that it's dangerous to assume the two groups will complement each other at the ballot box.

"It's not clear that there would be a lot of enthusiasm for an African-American from a Latino electorate," he said.

Vanderbilt University Law School professor Carol M. Swain, author of "Black Faces, Black Interests," is one African-American who won't be voting for Obama — nor, likely, for any Democrat. She says none of the party's candidates has articulated a position "that really takes into consideration the harm that's being done to working-class Americans" by competition from illegal immigrants.

She doesn't feel "that shared race is a strong enough position to support a candidate."

But experts say many black voters may take the opposite tack when they cast ballots in South Carolina, where blacks make up about half of the Democratic electorate.

Not losing this time
Donald Aiesi, a political science professor at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., thinks turnout in the party primary there will be 4-to-1 black.

And he predicts that "the race pull" will be strong — even though, he adds, "I don't think anybody's going to talk to a pollster or anybody else and say, `Well, with me it's ultimately the idea that my son or daughter could be elected.'"

Not all black voters agree. John H. Corbitt, Garrett's pastor at the Springfield Baptist Church, doesn't see it that way. Iowa notwithstanding, he's leaning toward Clinton — partly because former President Bill Clinton was so good to blacks, but mostly because he thinks the New York senator can win in November. "Many of us are tired of being on the losing side."

Garrett, the mortician, said it's time to try something really new, and that's looking more and more like Obama.

"He's saying the things I want to hear," Garrett said. "I know he won't carry through all of them, but he'll carry through some of them. And it will be beneficial to our people."

Picking the president: The candidates Click to visit that candidate’s msnbc.com page or click the XML symbol for an RSS feed. John McCain    Barack Obama

MORE FROM

Section Front

Obama campaign head gets big book deal Officials turn down Franken request Joe the Plumber to become war correspondent Franken lead at 49 with absentees left to count Minn. Senate winner won't be known in 2008 First Read: 'Twas the seventh week of recount... Franken opens first lead in Minn. Senate race Mom of Palin daughter's boyfriend arrested Minn. court weighs rejected absentee ballots Minnesota panel reviews disputed ballots Section Front   Add headlines to your news reader: