Join our Mailing List!
Please click the link below to sign up for your community paper mailing list. Stay up to date with all the events going on in your community as well as the latest news.Sign Up Today!
Latin America Reference Weak Ploy In Election
By Peter Lewis
Latin America has had a few notable weeks in the U.S. media and its presidential elections. Unfortunately, it was used as an instrument of attack, needless to say a weak one, by the Grand Old Party Candidate, Arizona Senator John McCain, and his staff to slow the positive press coverage that Illinois Senator and Democratic Candidate Barack Obama has received after making numerous strategic and “presidential-like” stops across Europe and the Middle East.
While Obama’s overseas journey was tardy due to his overextended internal primary dual with Senator Hillary Clinton until June, Obama has shown that he feels comfortable amid heads of states in Britain and Pakistan. Last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki voiced support for Obama’s troop withdrawal timetable, no small blow to the untarnished McCain foreign affairs resume.
To counteract all of Obama’s upbeat media coverage, McCain’s camp pointed out that the Arizona senator has met with these heads of states and visited these countries more than five times. Going one step further, demonstrating their desperation for some press exposure, McCain’s team continues to question Obama’s foreign relations know-how with regards to Latin America, stating “Obama has never set foot in the region.”
Born in the Panama Canal zone and once adviser and a former assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, McCain believes his life’s proximity to the continent and his recent visits to Mexico and Columbia should give him an advantage over Obama in the polls, especially with the much-needed Hispanic vote. However, McCain’s birthday reaches back to 1936, a time when U.S.-Latin American relations were more asymmetric than now, and Obama, just this week turning 47, might be welcomed into the continent with his moderate tone and willingness to sit down with the Castros and Chavez.
Just last week, after seeing 200,000-plus people gathering for Obama’s speech in Berlin where he claimed to be a “fellow citizen of the world,” McCain’s best reaction was that while Obama listed off multiple countries in his discourse, he failed to mention any Latin America nations. Depending on how you look at it, this exclusion has two implications: First, that McCain’s strategy is quite anemic just weeks before the Democratic convention should only gain more momentum for Obama. Second, that Latin America will be once again overcast by the Middle East, the U.S. economy and the normal U.S. tit-for-tat partisan squabbles in the overall presidential election.
It would be naïve to think Obama’s speech writers simply overlooked the inclusion of Latin America. Frankly, the Obama campaign knows that speaking and visiting Latin America will not win the presidential election on Nov. 4. In all actuality, U.S. citizens do not expect any new changes in Latin America after its “supposed” turn for the left and 2005 backlash against the U.S. proposed and long overdue Free Trade Agreement for the Americas.
On the other side, few “citizens of Latin America” expect changes on behalf of the U.S. in its hemispheric relations, whether it be Obama or McCain as the final victor. The only big policy difference between the two candidates is McCain tends to be more pro-free trade and Obama much more wary of its benefits. Of course, this big difference will not affect Chile, Central America or Mexico, where the U.S. already has signed and approved Free Trade Agreements. There are few countries, like Colombia, which have negotiated a FTA with the U.S. that might be affected by the presidential outcome. While in general Latin Americans, both citizens and politicians, prefer an open border economy and pro-trade administration, general sentiment favors Obama simply because of his outright rejection to the invasion of Iraq, something that lingers deep in Latin Americans mind.
The fact that McCain has tried to put Latin America on the table as a political tactic in the presidential campaign does not show that the south will have some new increased importance in the next few months nor in the next few years. Rather, it shows a lack of substance on the McCain campaign trail, and neither the U.S. public nor Latin America public will fall for such gimmicks as true determining issues for the U.S. presidential outcome in November.
Peter Lewis, an Osawatomie native, works as a professor at the Institute of International Studies at the University of Chile, where he starts his doctoral studies in political science this month.
printable version
e-mail this story
While Obama’s overseas journey was tardy due to his overextended internal primary dual with Senator Hillary Clinton until June, Obama has shown that he feels comfortable amid heads of states in Britain and Pakistan. Last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki voiced support for Obama’s troop withdrawal timetable, no small blow to the untarnished McCain foreign affairs resume.
To counteract all of Obama’s upbeat media coverage, McCain’s camp pointed out that the Arizona senator has met with these heads of states and visited these countries more than five times. Going one step further, demonstrating their desperation for some press exposure, McCain’s team continues to question Obama’s foreign relations know-how with regards to Latin America, stating “Obama has never set foot in the region.”
Born in the Panama Canal zone and once adviser and a former assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, McCain believes his life’s proximity to the continent and his recent visits to Mexico and Columbia should give him an advantage over Obama in the polls, especially with the much-needed Hispanic vote. However, McCain’s birthday reaches back to 1936, a time when U.S.-Latin American relations were more asymmetric than now, and Obama, just this week turning 47, might be welcomed into the continent with his moderate tone and willingness to sit down with the Castros and Chavez.
Just last week, after seeing 200,000-plus people gathering for Obama’s speech in Berlin where he claimed to be a “fellow citizen of the world,” McCain’s best reaction was that while Obama listed off multiple countries in his discourse, he failed to mention any Latin America nations. Depending on how you look at it, this exclusion has two implications: First, that McCain’s strategy is quite anemic just weeks before the Democratic convention should only gain more momentum for Obama. Second, that Latin America will be once again overcast by the Middle East, the U.S. economy and the normal U.S. tit-for-tat partisan squabbles in the overall presidential election.
It would be naïve to think Obama’s speech writers simply overlooked the inclusion of Latin America. Frankly, the Obama campaign knows that speaking and visiting Latin America will not win the presidential election on Nov. 4. In all actuality, U.S. citizens do not expect any new changes in Latin America after its “supposed” turn for the left and 2005 backlash against the U.S. proposed and long overdue Free Trade Agreement for the Americas.
On the other side, few “citizens of Latin America” expect changes on behalf of the U.S. in its hemispheric relations, whether it be Obama or McCain as the final victor. The only big policy difference between the two candidates is McCain tends to be more pro-free trade and Obama much more wary of its benefits. Of course, this big difference will not affect Chile, Central America or Mexico, where the U.S. already has signed and approved Free Trade Agreements. There are few countries, like Colombia, which have negotiated a FTA with the U.S. that might be affected by the presidential outcome. While in general Latin Americans, both citizens and politicians, prefer an open border economy and pro-trade administration, general sentiment favors Obama simply because of his outright rejection to the invasion of Iraq, something that lingers deep in Latin Americans mind.
The fact that McCain has tried to put Latin America on the table as a political tactic in the presidential campaign does not show that the south will have some new increased importance in the next few months nor in the next few years. Rather, it shows a lack of substance on the McCain campaign trail, and neither the U.S. public nor Latin America public will fall for such gimmicks as true determining issues for the U.S. presidential outcome in November.
Peter Lewis, an Osawatomie native, works as a professor at the Institute of International Studies at the University of Chile, where he starts his doctoral studies in political science this month.
Comments on "Latin America Reference Weak Ploy In Election"
Comments are limited to 200 words or less.C. M. Binder wrote on Aug 7, 2008 3:24 PM:
" Considering the author is a professor and starting doctoral studies in political science, the piece lacks hard substance. It's far more suited to be a campaign press release or for one 'talking-head' on tv to be hitting over the head of another. Granted, it's clever. But it's weak. For instance, if the Obama campaign isn't speaking about or visiting Latin America because they know it has not affect on the election, then why travel to and speak in Berlin? (Hint, it's a photo-op too.) If you're for Obama and against McCain, just say so. "