Jeff explores Latino and Asian American support for Hillary Clinton in his recent contribution

 Jeff's emergent versus insurgent paradigm is instructive.  This paradigm helps explain why, or rather how, Asian American and Latino voters make themselves heard on election day. Still, I am not sure if it sufficiently covers another central element of this discussion why democratic candidates have been only marginally successful in mobilizing voters from these two communities.  Jeff points to a number of mistakes made early on by Obama's campaign that have hindered his campaigns in these communities, but Clinton's success has not been transformative in any regard, something that one should find particularly troubling considering how heavily contested this campaign has been. 

El Diario/La Prensa points out that Clinton won 3/4 of Latino votes in New York and 88% in New Jersey.  If you follow the comments posted in response to this article, many of them question the veracity of this victory.  For example, commenter Jose Vota declares:

    En Nueva York, gano con tres cuartas partes del voto hispano. En Nueva Jersey, con el 88 por ciento. Mi pregunta Tres cuartas     partes de cuantos? el 88 por ciento de cuantos? Cuantos salieron a votar, 1000, 800, 3000, digan cuantos, cual es el temor de         ilustrar con numeros la baja participacion civica de los hispanos, talvez asi nos da pena y salimos mas.

Vota's question seems to be a legitimate one, what does garnering 75% and 88% of Latino votes in New York and New Jersey respectively really translate to?  How many voters does this even out to and, how do these numbers really reflect the tenor of voter participation among Latinos?  

 A number of the other comments are as, if not even more, skeptical of the true measure of Clinton's success-not to mention the Latino politicians from NY and NJ who endorsed her campaign.  Regular readers of El Diario/La Prensa and similar publications know that this skepticism derives from frustration with American foreign policy relating to South American and Caribbean spanish speaking countries, as well as Mexico.  This frustration is also born about by democratic short sighted on immigration, the war, and the latest crop of multi-millionaire candidates like John Kerry and Clinton who court their votes, while overseeing an economic recession that disproportionately impacts poor and working class Latinos. 

Tuesday's Clinton victories in New York and New Jersey were engineered by local politicians who leveraged their community support in anticipation of great returns on this investment.  It was, as Jeff points out, made possible by Clinton being able to mobilize her machine early on in the race to ensure these votes.  However, if you read between the lines of the frustration expressed in the comments, Obama's success has made many Latinos doubtful about whether Clinton will be able to deliver on her promises.  This may seem like a negligible point now that contests are over in NY and California, but  these are precisely the kinds of problems that democrats will have to address if Clinton is the candidate in a general election.  While a surging Obama has the clear cut task of trying to lure Latino voters, Clinton will face a far more nuanced and sensitive mission, holding on to voters that she once thought were in her back pocket.