It was thrilling that Jeb Bush announced his presidential candidacy at Miami Dade College, which has an iconic status among Latinos. However, his speech was woefully devoid of specifics on what he will do for Latino voters if they help elect him.
Hispanic voters are by far the fastest-growing (and youngest) ethnic voting bloc in the US. If Bush wants to enter the White House in 2016, he must earn the Latino vote.
While the former Florida governor has a traditionally strong relationship to Miami’s Cuban-American population, his ability to reach out to Latinos beyond the state is uncertain. This was demonstrated in dramatic fashion during his speech itself. While Bush was offering homilies about hope and the future, a group of Latino protesters raised the issue of immigration reform, on which he has punted in the past. The protesters drew boos from the Bush supporters in attendance, but they brought up an important point.
Where exactly does Bush stand on immigration reform? He once supported Mitt Romney’s bizarre “self-deportation” scheme, and he failed to stake out a position on the US Senate’s 2013 immigration reform bill. In a recent appearance on Face the Nation programme, Bush stated that he supports a “path to legalised status” for undocumented immigrants but no route to citizenship for the millions of workers who help sustain the US economy. His lack of clear leadership on immigration reform will cost him dearly among Latino voters outside of south Florida.
Bush’s role as a paid adviser to Lehman Brothers raises another set of questions for voters. Shortly after he was touted by the Wall Street Journal as “Lehman’s Secret Weapon,” the investment bank filed the largest bankruptcy claim in US history, imperilling the American economy. This, it turns out, was a particular problem for Latino families.
Lehman fell prey to a self-destructive move into the subprime mortgage business. Millions of Hispanic households were negatively impacted by the shenanigans of firms such as Lehman - and the economic fallout. The Pew Research Center found that Latino household wealth fell by 66% between 2005 and 2009. What did Jeb Bush learn from this debacle, and what kinds of policies would he pursue as president to reverse this loss of wealth? Again, he provides no details.
Equally troubling, Bush has not provided any ideas on how to deal with the burgeoning college student debt crisis - a crisis that fall squarely on the shoulders of the newest generation of Latino students at Miami Dade and other colleges across the country.
In his record-setting fundraising campaigns, Bush has proven to be receptive to the needs of some of the wealthiest Americans in the country. If he wants to win, he is going to have to work equally hard to demonstrate his responsiveness to Latino voters.