SOMETHING IN COMMON?
AbstractDoes elite rhetoric influence how Latinos view their relationship with African Americans? In this paper, we provide a systematic empirical assessment of the impact that elite messages have on Latino perceptions of economic and political commonality by drawing on two unique data sources: the 2006 Latino National Survey (LNS) and a survey experiment embedded in the September 2010 Latino Decisions Tracking Poll (LDS). Our analysis reveals that the attitudinal effects of exposure to elite messages are strongly conditioned by one's political partisanship. To be more precise, we find that although exposure to elite messages leads Democrats to express more in common politically with African Americans, it fails to exert any significant influence among other groups and on different dependent variables. Specifically, the evidence presented here shows that reception of persuasive messages from like-minded political leaders contributes nothing to our understanding of how attitudes on economic commonality are formed and very little to our understanding of the source from which perceptions of political commonality arise among Republicans and Independents. In addition to making significant contributions to the literatures on commonality, multiracial coalitions and public opinion, these findings also make a strong case for further evaluating the role of political leadership in forging bonds of cooperation across racial lines.