Minority Voters Find New Voice in Primary Races

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian: Sure did. Many African-American families for decades had portraits of Abraham Lincoln in their households.

But by 1960, many of them turned Lincoln's portrait to the wall for two reasons. One is that, in the Democratic Party, even an anti-lynching law could not get passed during the Roosevelt administration in the 1940s because of all these white, southern, Democratic, in many cases racist, senators and members of Congress who stopped that. They began to get impatient with that.

But, you know, the other thing was that, in 1960 -- and this was the moment -- John Kennedy was called upon to try to help Martin Luther King get out of jail in Georgia. Richard Nixon was, too.

Nixon took the easier road, said, "I'm not going to do it. I don't want to jeopardize possible Republican gains in the white South." Kennedy called the judge, got King out, and Martin Luther King's father famously said, "I was for Nixon. I was a Republican. But I've got a suitcase full of votes, and I'm going to take them to John Kennedy."

RICHARD NORTON SMITH, George Mason University: It's true. That is the call on which so much of the last 50 years of American politics arguably turns.

People forget, but Dwight Eisenhower got a very substantial percentage of the black vote in '52, and particularly in '56. It was Republican votes in the Senate that passed the '64 civil rights bill.

But in 1964, the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, who had been part of the filibuster against the bill. And, basically, you know, there has not been a competition certainly between the parties for African-American and, to some degree, even Latino voters.

That same year, you had the fight within the Democratic Party, dramatized on the floor of the convention at Atlantic City, that was the first of several that was all about a process of opening the Democratic Party and really inviting in African-Americans, in particular, and what used to be called "Chicanos" and are now Latinos.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Professor Gage, there have been Latinos in the United States in large numbers for 160 years. How come it's becoming so much more of an electoral target now, that vote?

BEVERLY GAGE: Well, I think a couple of reasons. One is simply that the numbers are growing, and that is pretty clear on all ends.

I think Richard points out an important point, which is that, when we talk about Latino voters, we can't talk about a single bloc. It means something very different to be a Latino voter in Miami and to be a Latino voter in New York and to be a Latino voter in California.

I think the other reason that there's so much focus on it this year is because immigration is one of the big issues and because, for the last couple of years, you've seen a real mobilization of Latino voters, Latino activists around the immigration issue, and so you've got a much better organized community, as well.