Will voters go for the one like them?

Carlos Alberto Montaner

For whom do voters vote? What motivates them? The ethnic group to which they belong, and the one to which the candidate belongs are factors, no doubt. A voter generally looks for one of his own, or at least someone from the neighborhood.

It appears that 95 percent of African-American voters will vote for Barack Obama. That's natural. It's the first time a black candidate has a chance to become president of the United States. The same happens in local elections in Florida. The Cuban-American voter usually backs candidates from the same origin, ''Anglos'' support those who look like them and have Anglo-Saxon names (not always -- I remember an Anglo governor whose last name was Martínez) and African Americans prefer their own folks.

Nevertheless, according to the polls, candidate Obama is supported by a very important sector of white voters. Who are those people?

In general, they are voters from large urban centers, male, more educated and prosperous than the average, Democrats and independents who call themselves ''liberal'' in the distorted sense that the word -- of Spanish origin -- has in English.

To them, ethnic differences weigh less than the positive image of Obama they hold: a young man, educated, blessed by a magnetic personality, a remarkable speaker intent on changing the country, although he still has not made clear how or in what direction.

In addition, I believe that voting for a person from another ethnic background gives liberals the emotional gratification of demonstrating that they are people free of prejudice. (It is a well-known mechanism: Very religious people are comforted by voting for just and severe candidates. Voting is also a source of psychological pleasure.)

The case of Hispanics is interesting. As it often happens, African Americans and Hispanics are two not-well-integrated minorities. They live in separate neighborhoods, which is not strictly a racial issue: black Cubans and black Dominicans would rather live among Hispanics than among African Americans.

Ethnicity and culture matter more than the amount of melanin that darkens the skin. Prejudices and stereotypes flow between the groups. Hispanic and African-American youth gangs face each other on the streets of big cities and then continue their bloody battles inside prisons. When Hispanics had to choose between Obama and Hillary Clinton, they chose Clinton. But then, the choice was inside the Democratic Party, to which two out of every three Hispanics belong. For now, nobody knows exactly what will happen when the alternative is either a white Republican or a black Democrat. Will ethnic distaste or party affiliation prevail?

Jews face a similar dilemma. Most of them share Obama's sociological profile (they are educated, big-city dwellers, more prosperous than the average, liberals and Democrats) but relations between African Americans and Jews are not the best. Radical black leaders with links to Islam, like Louis Farrakhan, have poisoned those relations.

Few of us remember Sammy Davis Jr., that talented black singer and showman who converted to Judaism and never stopped mocking his own condition. ''Ever since I became a Jew,'' Davis used to say, ``every time I walk past a jewelry store I can't decide if I want to rob it or buy a diamond.''

When Barry Goldwater, an Arizona conservative, was the Republican candidate in the 1964 presidential election, singer Dean Martin used to console his friend Davis (a staunch Democrat) with this wicked phrase: ``I don't know why Sammy is so worried. I've told him that if Goldwater wins, I shall buy him.''

It was a different time, less inhibited by political correctness. What emotion will now prevail among Jewish voters? A secret ethnic hostility or the liberal ideological affinity? It's still too soon to tell.

Anyhow, Obama, although he is today the favorite candidate, could end up losing to McCain despite the Republican senator's age, the unpopularity of his president, the economic problems afflicting the country and the rejection of the war in Iraq. And if Obama loses, he will be the victim of precisely these uncomfortable but real ethnic factors.

That's what Hillary Clinton meant when she warned about Obama's likely ineligibility. Because McCain is a moderate Republican, he irritates practically no white Democrat, Republican or independent who might hesitate to vote for an African American. Sadly and inevitably, the United States presidential election will be (it already is) largely a racial contest. And in that sense, McCain stands to win.

May 27, 2008

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