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Even when two white men square off, racial politics can color the outcome

Ruben Navarrette Jr. on

SAN DIEGO - Politics is no stranger to irony. Now that the most diverse presidential primary field in history has withered down to a choice between two old white guys, the fortunes of Democrats rest with voters of color.

Joe Biden has a tight grip on the black vote. Bernie Sanders has scooped up the Latino vote. Both men are likely to split the ballots of working-class whites.

Despite the fact that some whites are afraid that minorities want to get even for past injustices, the opposite appears to be true. Biden has a lot to answer for with black voters on criminal justice, and Sanders has often failed Latinos on immigration.

Yet here we are. Apparently, people of color don't hold grudges -- at least not against Democrats.

Still, no matter how this racial tug-of-war between voters turns out, Democrats are about to get a big helping of karma.

They have it coming. For the last 50 years, Democrats have gotten a free ride due to Republicans' boneheaded missteps on race. They have portrayed their opponents as racists while letting themselves off the hook for not doing a better job of serving minorities.

 

Now, this year, one way or another, the Democratic nominee will be a white male who grew up in the 1940s -- before the civil rights movement - and has a knack for saying clumsy and insensitive things about race.

That could be Biden. But it could also be Sanders.

It turns out the 77-year-old former vice president -- who failed to defend Clarence Thomas accuser Anita Hill as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, authored the 1994 crime bill that led to the mass incarceration of Latinos and African-Americans, described Barack Obama as "articulate and bright and clean," and gave black people a parenting sermon centered around record players -- hasn't cornered the market on off-color comments about color, race or ethnicity.

The 78-year-old Vermont senator -- who has spent his adult life in the Green Mountain State, which is overwhelmingly white -- recently said a pretty dumb thing about how Biden came to enjoy such strong support from African Americans.

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