Sunday’s presidential primary is bringing Puerto Ricans just the attention the struggling island has been clamoring for: visits by the candidates and a former president, and media attention that people hope will help their fellow U.S. citizens on the mainland to understand their plight.
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But Puerto Ricans have too much experience of being taken for granted to believe it will make a difference.
U.S. politicians promise to help Puerto Rico every four years, then seem to forget about the island once the elections are over, residents here complain.
The Democratic presidential campaigns — at least for now — are indeed paying homage to Puerto Rico, which offers the biggest delegate prize of the remaining three contests that finally bring the long primary voting season to a close on Tuesday.
Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York is favored to win Sunday, owing in large part to the New York-Puerto Rico connection and affection for the Bill Clinton administration. A recent poll by El Vocero, a San Juan newspaper, had Clinton ahead by 51 percent to 38 percent over Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.
But because of the way the 55 delegates are apportioned, Obama could add a sizable number of delegates to his count even if he loses.
Obama needs the support of just 42 more delegates to reach the 2,026 needed to win the Democratic nomination — unless the arithmetic were to change Saturday at the meeting of the Democratic Party’s rules committee in Washington, D.C., to consider what to do about the disputed delegates from Florida and Michigan.
Clinton has been campaigning more aggressively in Puerto Rico, returning Friday night for a rally in tourist-packed Old San Juan, but Obama has also visited, and both contenders are on the airwaves with ads in English and Spanish. Obama reminds Puerto Ricans that he, too, grew up on an island (Hawaii) and understands their needs, while Clinton has underscored her experience and New York ties to Puerto Rican issues and culture.
But for Puerto Ricans, the primary election is less about what the results will mean for the two candidates, and more about what it will mean for the commonwealth itself.
Many are upset about the $2.5 million the government is spending to hold the primaries and are planning to protest the outlay Sunday morning. And while Puerto Ricans fight in U.S. wars, they still don’t have the right to vote in the general election.
“I’m not voting. I think it is a waste of time and money to vote in a primary when you can’t vote in the presidential election” in November, said Jose Herrera, 22.
“We’ll get the spotlight for a little bit. They say they will do something for us, to fix the status problem,” said Herrera, who works at a radio station. But Puerto Rico is “not a priority” for U.S. politicians, he lamented.
Politics here have little to do with the traditional left-right construct on the mainland; the dialogue is almost entirely about the future of the island and its relationship with the United States, local and U.S. officials say. Nearly half of Puerto Rico’s residents want the island to be a state; approximately an equal number want it to remain a commonwealth, with reduced political rights but also less taxation; and a sliver want Puerto Rico to be an independent country.
Since both Clinton and Obama have supported Puerto Rico’s right to determine its own future, voters say they see little difference between the two contenders on the issue most important to Puerto Ricans.