Like any sport, politics is an offensive and defensive game. Like any game, you can usually tell who is winning by 
who is attacking and who is defending. When you’ve been attacked over and over, you might have the tendency to start cheating, and in politics, this is done by lying about your opponent.
This week Romney’s campaign hit an all-time low by releasing their worst attack ad to our Latino audience. The ad features a Mexican businessman and is the Latino version of the “These Hands” ad. The ad attacks the President and features comments he made saying that people who built companies and were successful did not do it alone.
Unless you’re an angry Republican, you got what the President was saying and can see how this ad is playing to the worst in human nature. The “These Hands” ad is meant to appeal to our ego and reveals more about the selfish un-American nature plaguing modern conservative thought. The ad tells you “no one helped you — you did it all yourself.”
As a small-business owner, I am sick of these arrogant attacks from the right. No one says you build a business without hard work, but to argue against the role mentors, friends and family play in making each of us a success is just plain stupid (yeah, I said it). To say that we owe all of our success to our own work is an even greater cultural insult to Latinos.
All but the most self-absorbed, bitter and angry-with-the-world Latino will tell you that they made it with great help from others. How many of us will attest to the fathers and mothers who worked everyday so that we could get through school? How many of us will say with heartfelt thanks that a teacher, a mentor, or someone else played a great role in our lives that contributed to our success?
Latinos are all descendents of immigrants and, if we were properly raised, carry that same cultural ethic. Hard work + strong community = success. Romney and modern conservatism want to attack this American belief by categorizing it with bad terms like “socialism.” Unfortunately for him, our community is not that dumb.
Just like you, I put in long hours every week and don’t need to be told about how hard I am working at my own success. In fact the worst thing for me or our country to do right now is get self-absorbed. We are in hard financial times, and this economy will be built by more people coming together.
It is only natural instinct when times get tough to focus only on yourself, funny how every successful person I have ever met doesn’t have that attitude. Having reached 40, I see many mentors who helped me grow, and I actively look for bright young people I can mentor. I have found that many hands help build great things.
So while I disagree with everything the ad stands for, I do like the title. Yes, Mr. Romney, it will be “these hands” that help build America. “These” implies multiple hands, not just two. I am sure you will get a nice small following of self-absorbed people who agree with your message, that it is all about them. I’m not worried, because people like that only get so far.
The rest of us have a country we want to keep building together.
Jose Cruz is the editor of OurTiempo.com worked in the Clinton White House and on three Presidential campaigns. He is the founder of ImmigrationPAC a pro-comprehensive immigration reform Federal Political Action Committee and active political commentator.
About Being Latino Contributors
Great article, Romney doesn’t know what else to do to win this election. He is desperate.
“but to argue against the role mentors, friends and family play in making each of us a success is just plain stupid (yeah, I said it).” Who says that the people that you mentioned didn’t play a part? The ad doesn’t say that, Romney didn’t say that. But what Obama seems to think is that your success (well done) is part of the federal collective. He is not your neighbor, he is a federal employee. And when a federal employee states that you owe success to them, that is stating that government gave you your success; without them you would not be successful. It’s nothing about selfishness. It’s about creating, yet another group, to hate. Besides, what does Obama know about being an entrepreneur? He’s a collectivist.
well put!
That speech was Obama’s way of inciting class warfare and demonizing job creators in a very sneaky way. It sounds innocent enough, but it’s really about collectivism and the role of bigger government in our lives.
And again, it’s not all about Latinos. You’d be surprised with how many Latinos actually disagree with what Obama says.
Wow, another dumb piece by Jose Cruz. The last of which was his attack on Romney, his horse Rafalca and somehow intertwining it with healthcare for his horse and people. LOL
That “You didn’t build that business” speech may very well be the nail the seals Obama’s political coffin. Businesses, especially the small businesses across the USA, are greatly insulted by that speech. No matter how much Obama tries to spin it as a GOP attack, Americans are not stupid. Americans are concerned and they are hurting. Small businesses are hurting. Obama has yet again told small business America that he is not for them. That is the message Obama gives of himself. Obama defines himself quite clearly.
Obama doesn’t need the GOP to attack him. The GOP merely points to the words spoken by none other than Obama and Crazy Joe Biden. Mitt Romney will win the presidency despite not getting a majority of the Hispanic or black vote because Americans (including Hispanics and blacks) know that Obama is a piece of s*hit who has no clue how to run a country, let along a government.
Mitt Romney has both business acumen and government experience, and the ability to reach out to the other side. When has Obama reached out to the GOP? When? Cuando? He hasn’t. Obama acts like he’s the only one that matters. An American Mugabe who is willing to destroy this nation until he gets things done his way no matter how bad his ways are, as proven by his fiscal policies over the past three and a half years.
The mistake the Latino Community will make is to believe that this election is about THEM, about DREAMers, about Immigration Reform and Amnesty. It’s not, and it will never be. This election is about The Future of America, it’s liberty, it’s lawful citizenry.
The Dreamer Obama Latino crowd are similar to those Europeans that where conquered by the Nazis and then collaborated with them and looked the other way when atrocities were committed. When the war ended, the people who were resisting the Nazis turned on the collaborators – it wasn’t pretty but it was common sense and the right thing to do to people that helped the Nazis. Latino Obama flunkies that think that it’s all about them are in for a very rude awakening because the rest of the nation has already taken notice of their support for the great divider Obama.
I call them Wet DREAMers.
Funny how the GOP says the Govt. plays no role in our success yet embrace the founding Fathers as Gods. The Govt. plays a role in all of our success in the same way multiple factors- mentors, family do. That ad is meant to attack that principle and it is not what our country needs. But hey, I’m sure no one ever helped you get to where you are. I’ve had 100s of people including the govt. with student loans help me.
The Founding Fathers were not the Federal Government.
The Founders were not gods.
Jose: Do tell me how the government plays such a roll as making people successful? That is a crock of manure. You keep believing the leftwing lie that only the government can make you successful. If that were so, everybody, and I mean, EVERYBODY would be successful. There would be no poverty. Everything would be good. What a crock!!! Dude, the government doesn’t create anything. It takes dollars and places it somewhere. People, entrepreneurs create. Small business owners don’t own their success or failure to government. It’s all on THEM.
Here is what American small business owners think of Obama/Biden: http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/08/small-business-owner-sends-biden-packing-you-didnt-build-that/#.UC2A_STwFdU.facebook
The federal government impedes real progress. Not that manufactured socialist tripe (no offense to mondongo) they call moving “forward”, actually shoving forward, whether you like I or not.
Gotta love the collectivist mentality going on here: Stupid column. Success is never a solo endeavor. LMAO I guess Lance Rios didn’t build Being Latino.
Amtrak, the post office, Social Security, GM, FANNIE MAE, FREDDIE MAC,…..all operate in a deficit. Unborn children, yours,….will be strapped with this debt. This is immoral, and corrupt. Atleast one of the candidates knows what a non-governmental profit is, and how to keep it. what does the other one want to do. Oh yes, run all industries like GM….in a 50% loss of stock value, seized pensions of non-union workers, and using TARP funding to pay for TARP loans and then claiming the loans are paid. Get out of here.
Public schools
“Hard work + strong community = success”
Great article, the only thing i disagree with is your statement that “Latinos are all descendants of immigrants,” there is a significant portion of us who were from the American southwest when it was northern Mexico. We aren’t immigrants, we’re home.