[ilbegone]

You can't point at a brown guy and say that he voted for Obama any more than you can point at a white guy and say the he voted for Romney.

People who vote are going to vote primarily on their short term self interest.

My white biologist acquaintance is an example. My perception of him is that he's in a field he truly enjoys, but most of the employment for his particular degree would be in government employ - and there are only so many slots available with the Forest Service and the BLM.

The mind boggling environmental (and often very silly) requirements for the "green" projects pushed by Obama and ultimately financed by the taxpayer provide him with employment opportunity which just wasn't there 20 years ago. The biologist voted for Obama and is of the opinion that "diversity" as defined by "educators" is a positive.

So, what is the "Latino" vote about as compared to the "white" vote?

Some months ago the primary concern for both races was the economy, with immigration issues lagging behind a number of other issues.

So, "what's in it for me?"

There are any number of personal variables. A multi-generational with no current family ties to Latin America might think different than a 14th amendment citizen with both parents here illegally and older siblings born elsewhere. After all, the newcomers crowd American Latinos out of work too.

There are those among both the newly arrived and the long established who consider that anyone who proclaims "the white man is keeping me down" is making excuses for personal failure, that the notion is just so much horse shit.

Mexican derived Californians might have a whole different perception of issues than Cuban derived Floridians and Puerto Rican derived New Yorkers might diverge from both.

Then there's welfare and other social services. A significant portion of welfare recipients are unemployable due to drug and alcohol addiction, others scam the system and there are those who genuinely need a helping hand through no fault of their own. As well, there has been a sharp increase in disability claims probably due to people who would normally be gainfully employed in a good economy despite their aches and pains but are now unemployed and can't get a job because they're slower, older, or both. Which candidate would appear more likely to maintain and even expand the status quo?

On the other hand someone who works hard for his money is probably going to be resentful of the taxman regardless of personal pigmentation.

How about the social security in which the 12% combined "contribution" (employers and employees) collected in 1969 is practically worthless now? Which candidate is perceived as more likely to support continuing to send out social security payments and which one will likely hack on the program?

And there's the concept of race and perception of white racial animosity. A significant number of Latinos have had it hammered into their heads that the white man is out to get them, and there are any number of brown racists who make a living fomenting racial animosity and make themselves political spokesmen for everyone else who has a brown skin and Spanish last name. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and even I've heard both far left and far right white political pundits talk as if everyone who can be termed a "Latino" as essentially being the same person.

Not everyone is exactly alike, and most people who act as if it were so are either willful liars or ignorant dupes.

There are political realities, but the electorate votes individually for what's perceived to be in it for themselves.

Including Jews who vote in support of a Democrat party comprised of people who generally seem to me to virulently hate Jews - something's personally perceived to be in it for them.