Don’t listen to the cynics; everybody go vote

Here we go again.

In 2010, a group calling itself Latinos for Reform, run by a former George W. Bush administration official, ran a controversial ad in Nevada, telling Hispanics, "don't vote."

The ad said President Barack Obama had failed to deliver on his promise of comprehensive immigration reform, and the only way to "send a message" was to withhold your vote.

It was a cynical ploy, of course. Encouraging a vote for Republicans over Democrats wouldn't have worked, since the GOP was hardly in favor of immigration reform. So the next best thing was to discourage voting in general.

The ad was denounced by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid as well as the spokesman for Republican Senate nominee Sharron Angle. And after Angle's overtly racist television advertising in that race, if the message was something even she could not conscience, it was clearly wrong.

And now yet another group led by a former Republican official is once again telling Nevada's Hispanic community not to vote, at least in the presidential race.

Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of a group calling itself the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, brought up the "don't vote" option in the Review-Journal last week.

"All we're saying is if you don't like [Republican nominee Mitt] Romney, you don't have to vote for Obama. You can leave the ballot blank. That's an option you're actually given by the state of Nevada," Aguilar told the Review-Journal's Tom Ragan.

In other words, "Don't vote."

Aguilar - who held several positions in the George W. Bush administration, including chief of the U.S. Office of Citizenship - didn't return a call placed Tuesday to the Washington, D.C.-based American Principles in Action, the parent of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles. But there's very little that may be said in defense of such an insidious, cynical and blatant attempt at inducing Hispanic self-disenfranchisement.

My advice to Las Vegas Latinos who met Tuesday's final voter-registration deadline? Vote. Vote in large numbers. Take your registered voter friends to the polls with you and vote.

And while you're on the way to the polls, it may be helpful for you to consider just who it was telling you not to vote, and to ask just why they'd do such a thing.

Could it be that polls have shown Latinos supporting Obama? The Pew Hispanic Center last week found that Latinos support Obama over Romney 69 percent to 21 percent. But the survey also found that just 77 percent said they were "absolutely certain" to vote in November's election, compared with the 89 percent of all registered voters who said that.

In other words, Hispanics might just be persuaded to ... not vote.

Now, it must be said here that nobody - regardless of race, gender or political persuasion - should vote in ignorance. A critical part of the act of voting is informing yourself about the candidates and issues on the ballot, and deciding what is in the best interests of the nation. Then, and only then, should you head to the polls, because voting in ignorance is a dangerous thing.

But so is discouraging anybody from casting a vote. That's repugnant in the face of the reality that so many people have sacrificed so much in order to build a country where citizens can bloodlessly determine the course of government for themselves and their posterity.

So we should all reject the 2010 advice of Latinos for Reform and the 2012 advice of the head of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles. Instead, let's go to the polls and vote in every race. Vote for the candidate we think will best lead the country.

That's the American way.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at (702) 387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.