With Latinos Disillusioned, Democrats Headed for a Rout

For those who follow politics, Obama's reelection in 2012 was never seriously in doubt. The reason? Romney was consistently polling lower than McCain's anemic levels of Latino support in 2008. When the dust finally settled on the landslide drubbing the Republicans took in 2012, Hispanic voting was identified as the Holy Grail of future election success.

This past Saturday Charles Blow devoted his column to the growing split between young and old voters. Young people are trending overwhelming Democratic, while the aged, once solidly Democrat because of New Deal and Great Society legacies, now align with the GOP. But what I found interesting about Blow's opinion piece was the data backing up Latinos' electoral clout:

According to a 2011 Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project report, most of the growth in the U.S. population from 2000 to 2010 was due to Hispanics. 

The report found: 

“Since 2000, nearly 6 million more Latinos have become eligible to vote. The bulk of this growth was attributable to the 5 million U.S. born Latino youths nationwide who turned 18 during this past decade. That translates into an additional half-million U.S. born Latinos coming of age each year — a pattern that is certain to persist, and grow, in the coming decades.” 

The wave of demographic change and the liberal leaning of the young can’t be held back indefinitely through obstruction and aggression. A change is coming, and it’s blue.

But what if Hispanics, so discouraged by the rottenness of our duopoly, choose not to turnout? This is the realization that is dawning inside the beltway. Jackie Calmes had an excellent story, "Hopes Frustrated, Many Latinos Reject the Ballot Box Altogether," published Monday which was echoed yesterday from within the beltway by establishment pundit John Harwood.

The thinking goes like this: Obama and the Democratic Party have been successful because they have enjoyed huge advantages over Republicans among the young, women and Hispanics, and they have been successful at motivating these groups to go to the polls. Turnout among these groups always drops off precipitously during midterm elections, while the drop off for older, white voters -- the key GOP demographic -- is not as severe. Couple this normal drop off with the burgeoning disillusionment with Obama among the young and Latinos and you have a recipe for Democratic disaster come November.

What is pathetic and speaks to the hollowness of American democracy, the Republicans -- an absurd concatenation of Copperheaded money-power servants -- will reap huge rewards from the estrangement of core Democratic constituencies.

As of now, it appears that Democratic strategists and camp followers like Harwood are whistling past the graveyard with a tune that says as long as resources are invested in turnout a gigantic electoral rebuke can be avoided. But this is a canard designed to fulfill institutional expectations.

Yes, November is a long way away. But the loss of faith in Obama is real. There is no going back. Democrats are headed for a rout.