Imagine the late historian Theodore White writing The Making of the President 2016, examining the Latino political impact on America today in the groundbreaking way that his Pulitzer Prize winning presidential books analyzed the mid-20th Century national culture and how the country shaped its future.
The Latino Presidency: How Hispanics Will Elect America's Next President, penned by published author and long-time Hispanic political journalist Mr. Tony Castro is that book, a fascinating narrative history of how the nation's fastest growing segment of the population will influence the 2016 election and how both major parties are trying to win the Latino vote in what promises to be a magical moment in U.S. political history.
In what promises to be a ground-breaking political book, Tony Castro captures the heartbeat of a long campaign that began shortly after 2012, and that is increasingly being fashioned by the political reality that Latinos today make up 53 million people in the U.S. and that the Hispanic vote is primed to decide the presidency not only in 2016, but also in every presidential election beyond. It is interesting to note that the seven states where Latinos make up at least 20 percent of the population account for 153 of the 270 electoral votes needed for election of a president. This includes red state Texas where the growing Hispanic population threatens to change the traditionally Republican state that has not been carried by a Democratic candidate for president since 1976.
The prospect that Latinos could dramatically transform the course of history in Texas typifies the potential altered reality of U.S. presidential politics that was underscored recently when Joe Holley, political editor of the Houston Chronicle, looked over his state's changing landscape and concluded that, "This is sort of, in kind of a quirky way, the second Texas Revolution. And this time, the Mexicans are going to win."
In my opinion, no other author is better qualified to write this book than Tony Castro, whose landmark civil rights history Chicano Power: The Emergence of Mexican America (Dutton, 1974), is considered a seminal work in Latino Studies and a critical achievement. (Publishers Weekly: "Brilliant... a valuable contribution to the understanding of our time.") A former national correspondent for The Washington Post, Castro has covered every presidential election since 1964, when as a Texas high school student he reported on President Lyndon Johnson's reelection campaign. Today, the dean of Latino political journalists, he is the national political writer for the Miami-based Hispanic site Voxxi.com, which Vanity Fair has called "the Hispanic Politico.com."
In writing The Latino Presidency, Castro has tapped into his years of experience reporting in Texas, California, Washington, D.C., and across America, which has given him deep insights into political power in America and how our democracy works in choosing the president. The book details the history of Latino politics in America, from the post-World War II period when Hispanics comprised fewer than a couple of percentage points of the population to today when they make up 17 percent of the country and prepared not only to be the balance of power in determining the next president but also to possibly see one of their own elected.
The Latino Presidency also offers an exclusive behind-the-scenes account of how U.S. Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas rose to prominence in the Republican Party and could ultimately wind up being on the GOP's presidential ticket, a historic move that is likely to shake up national presidential politics even more than the nomination and election of Barack Obama in 2008. While Obama's election as the first African American elected president was certainly unprecedented, The Latino Presidency argues, the nomination of a Latino on the Republican presidential ticket could have a longer-term impact. It could shatter the traditional Hispanic loyalty to the Democratic Party, radically changing future political alliances, as well as break the "Brown Ceiling" that has historically limited Latinos in state and national Democratic politics.
A marvelous writer, Castro's strength is his meticulous reporting and his descriptions of the personalities, the behind-the-scenes maneuvering, the momentum shifts, and the infighting, tactics, and strategies that make up a presidential campaign and what leads up to one. The book is based on hundreds of interviews with major political leaders and figures since the 2012 presidential campaign alone, plus exhaustive research throughout the country. If you want to understand what is happening in the 2016 campaign, which will be unlike any in the past, then The Latino Presidency is the book to read as Castro artfully goes behind closed doors and shows how candidates, their parties and political operatives battle for the Latino vote to help them seize the nomination and, finally, the presidency.
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Leticia Gomez
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