Addressing potential voters in Spanish during a presidential campaign used to be a rarity “in the old days.”
But as early as 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy realized the growing importance of the U.S. Hispanic vote and convinced his wife, who spoke Spanish, to do an ad in Spanish, below.
In the ad, Mrs. Kennedy assures Hispanic voters that her husband, as presidente, “when world peace is threatened by Communism,” will lead America with a firm hand guide.
Assuring Hispanic Americans that her husband will always watch over those in our society who “need the protection of a humanitarian government” Mrs. Kennedy concludes, “Para el futuro de nuestros niños y para lograr un mundo donde exista la paz verdadera, voten ustedes por el partido demócrata el día 8 de noviembre. ¡Que viva Kennedy!”
(For our children’s’ future, and to achieve a world where true peace exists, vote for the Democratic Party on November 8. Long live Kennedy!)
While Hispanics were a much smaller part of the US voting bloc in the 60s, “political consultants and historians credit Jackie’s prominent role in outreach to Latinos as a crucial component of Kennedy’s razor thin margin of victory in 1960.”
Since then, many politicians at local, state and national levels have made Spanish part of their campaigns, including John McCain, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, John Kerry, Michael Bloomberg and many others.
Notoriously, the GOP’s Newt Gingrich, in 2007, had to apologize in Spanish for calling Spanish the “language of living in the ghetto.”
During the 2012 presidential campaign, both the Obama and Romney campaigns included Spanish in their appeals to Hispanics/Latinos.*
Romney’s son Craig, for example, has become his father’s personal translator, explaining in skillful Spanish in targeted TV ads that his dad is a man “con grandes convicciones,” or “with strong beliefs.” He will fight “para encaminar nuestro pais y crear empleos,” or “to guide our country and create jobs,” Craig Romney says.
For its part, the Obama campaign “recycled” its 2008 campaign slogan, “Si, se puede,” or “Yes, we can.”
The Obama and Romney teams spent a total of $23 million on Spanish-language ads during the 2012 presidential campaign.
It makes sense.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2013), the Latino population in 2012 was 53 million, making up 17% of the U.S. population. Latinos now make up about 10 percent of the national vote. Approximately 45 million Americans speak Spanish as a first language. If one includes multilinguals, that number exceeds 52 million.
Latinos are more likely to be new voters. As of 2012, “the median age for Latinos [was] 27.6 years, compared with 42 years for non-Hispanic whites. An estimated 50,000 Hispanics turn 18 each month and become eligible to vote.”
It is thus no surprise that the 2016 presidential hopefuls and their campaigns have gone out of their ways to impress Hispanic voters with their español.
Jeb Bush, fluent in Spanish and married to a Mexican woman, has used it well as has Marco Rubio, a native Spanish speaker, son of Cuban-American immigrants.
Jeb Bush:
Marco Rubio:
Hillary Clinton and her campaign have engaged the Hispanic-American community in Spanish with speeches, ads and with a Spanish-language web site, although Clinton admits that she does not speak Spanish. In addition, Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, speaks fluently Spanish. Clinton’s supportive PACs have announced a $3 million Spanish-language buy in Nevada, Florida and Colorado.
How much Spanish has the Republican presidential candidate used?
Except for a Spanglish “Hispanics Para Trump,” where the incorrect Spanish word for “for” was used, the answer is “ni papa,” roughly translated as zilch.
The man who has a love-hate relationship — depending on whom he talks to — with Mexicans, Hispanics, Latinos, Muslims, African-Americans, with less than 45 days to go until the November elections is, according to Politico.com, “on the precipice of becoming the only major-party presidential candidate this century not to reach out to millions of American voters whose dominant, first or just preferred language is Spanish.” It adds, “Trump has not only failed to buy any Spanish-language television or radio ads, he so far has avoided even offering a translation of his website into Spanish, breaking with two decades of bipartisan tradition.”
Not only does Mr. Trump refuse to recognize Hispanic demographics that could make or break his try for the presidency, he has chastised those who would dare to use Spanish in their campaign.
First, in an interview with conservative website Breitbart last September, Trump chided Jeb Bush for speaking Spanish while in the U.S. “”He’s a nice man. But he should really set the example by speaking English while in the United States.”
A few days later, during the GOP presidential debate at the Reagan Library, Trump lectured Bush, “This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish.”
Spanish has also been used against candidates.
During the 2012 campaign, the Service Employees International Union and the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action put out an ad in Spanish criticizing Romney for refusing to release his tax returns at the time.
The ad claimed that Romney “quiere que le mostremos nuestros papeles, pero él no nos muestra los suyos,” or, “he wants us to show him our papers, but he doesn’t show us his.”
In the case of Trump, the number of remarks, ads, speeches, videos made against and about Trump in Spanish are just too numerous and, in many cases, too graphic to list or quote here.
But here is a very short and very civil one:
Former Bush Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who has starred in a Spanish-language ad for Clinton, says, “Votar por Trump? No puedo”
And below is a recent ad by a Republican — Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois — claiming in heavily accented Spanish, “Yo no apoyo a Trump.” (“I don’t support Trump.”)
Who knows, during tonight’s presidential debate — “one of the most highly anticipated debates in modern politics” — Trump may surprise us all by, in impeccable Spanish, denying that he hates Mexicans: “Yo nunca dije eso. Yo amo a los Mexicanos,” (“I never said that. I love Mexicans”), followed by an expression of his love for Mexican food: “¡Quiero frijoles, quiero frijoles, quiero frijoles!”
You can watch (and hear) Trump in debate practice here.
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*The words “Hispanic,” and “Latino,” although having different meanings, are used interchangeably by the media and others, even by the U.S. Census Bureau and other U.S. government agencies. Here is one explanation.
Lead image: Courtesy DonkeyHotey.com
Edited to change “English” to “Spanish” in “Trump chided Jeb Bush for speaking English while in the U.S.”
