Editor's Note: Rocío Vélez is a lawyer, with more than 15 years of experience in international marketing, business development, and environmental advocacy. Republican strategist. Graduated from the Pontifical University of Puerto Rico with a postgraduate degree in History and Political Sciences from Point Park University in Pittsburgh. The opinions expressed in this comment are those of the author. See more opinion at cnne.com/opinion
(CNN) - 100 years ago, on August 18, 1920, the nineteenth amendment to our Constitution was ratified in the United States Congress, granting the right to vote to the women of this nation. However, it was only decades later that many of the states ratified the amendment and as recently as 1984, when Mississippi was the last of the states to join in ratifying it.
There have been many achievements by great women who today represent us in high-ranking positions in corporations, occupying congressional seats and presiding over one or another organization. However, the highest constitutional position, that of presiding over this nation, still remains a challenge of great proportions. Hillary Clinton tried to overcome that great barrier in 2016 and despite the fact that she obtained the majority of the popular vote, she did not manage to reach the required numbers in the Electoral College and suffered a defeat before now President Donald Trump.
In the Democratic primaries we had the presence of at least six women in competition, but in the end it was Joe Biden who was chosen by the party. Former Vice President Biden announced that Kamala Harris would be her partner on the ballot and will run for the vice presidency of the United States in the November elections for the Democratic Party. Regardless of her political affiliation, this candidacy is still a historic achievement for Senator Harris.
Senator Harris could be the first vice president of the United States. She is not the first woman to jump, as Geraldine Ferraro tried it out as Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984 and Sarah Palin did the same when she joined the late Senator John McCain's bid for the Republican Party in 2008.
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Harris will surely be attacked very hard by various members of the Republican Party on the way to the election and in the debate she will have with Vice President Mike Pence. But it should be noted that possibly her worst critics will be from the progressive wing of her own Democratic Party, as the controversial positions she took as a prosecutor in San Francisco, California and her heavy-handed attitude against crime, as well as her support Regardless of the ideological differences and the attacks that she will receive not only from President Trump, the figure of Kamala Harris provides an element of uncertainty to the electoral campaign.
When Hillary Clinton chose Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her ballot partner in 2016, political analysts thought he was an essential component that would ensure victory in key states, as Senator Kaine - with his command of the Spanish language - would attract that coveted Latino vote. And while it was a crucial element in Virginia, Kaine's presence did not translate into polling station votes in states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Senator Harris will help cement the suburban vote, which Biden already attracts, but the Latino vote is yet to be defined. And it is that, often, the Democrats underestimate this segment and the fact that we cannot be classified into a single unit.
Our convictions are as varied as our taste for tango, cumbia, bachata or salsa or… our palate in the kitchen. Latinos and Spanish-speakers come from different cultural and ethnic groups and our scale of values —usually— revolves around conservative positions on family matters and to the left on social issues. The Latino vote has also been able to overwhelmingly support a Bill Clinton or have been inclined to endorse presidents like Ronald Reagan or a George W. Bush. Democrats cannot continue to make the same mistake of grouping ourselves in the same block and limiting themselves to launching ads in Spanish without offering substance in the social and economic programs that affect our community and that of the young people of Gen Z. This generation is feeling the weight and burden of the wrongs inherited from our generations. Senator Harris did not attract the vote of young black men in the past, much less that of individuals with progressive ideals from the left wing of the Democratic Party. We will see if the trend changes as the campaign progresses.
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That vote - without a doubt - was held by a Bernie Sanders and it remains to be seen if even supporting Joe Biden or having figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, that vote of the young people will be cemented. But at this point in the political game, what Senator Harris does bring is extensive legal experience and her talents as a former prosecutor. These pieces are key and will be effective at the time of the debates against the now Vice President Mike Pence.
There is no doubt that less than three months before the presidential election, the figure of Senator Harris brings spark and energy to a presidential campaign that seemed to lack energy in the face of the electoral apathy that is being experienced in these uncertain times.
Now we can only wait to see if that translates into a historic moment when voters understand that the Biden-Harris formula is a combination of agents of change. If, on the contrary, progressive and independent voters perceive that Biden with his more than 40 years in politics responds to the big interests on Wall Street and that Kamala Harris will only limit herself to promoting the usual inertia of the big interests, without endorsing Moves of structural change in the areas of health, infrastructure and a rebound in the economy, the result will be to relive the slow agony of ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Donald TrumpJoe Biden