HispanicTrending

Remind Hispanics that it's about freedom

July 5, 2008
BY STAR PARKER

John McCain is trailing Barack Obama by 30 percentage points in support from Hispanic voters, according to this week's polling from Gallup. Even among Hispanics that self-identify as conservatives, McCain and Obama are even.

This is a far cry from 2004 when George W. Bush captured 45 percent of the Hispanic vote. At that time, Republicans were optimistic that Hispanics would become a majority voting bloc for the Republican Party.

The McCain campaign has two operative questions: Can ground be picked up among Hispanic voters? And if so, how?

I hope that the senator sets his sights on Hispanics. If he does it right, he can gain support from them and in so doing, also inject badly needed focus and excitement into his overall campaign.

A year ago, when it was far from clear that John McCain would be the presumptive Republican nominee, his defining issue was the war in Iraq. As public support for the war wavered, he put his popularity on the line, arguing that we must push on. "I'd rather lose an election than lose a war," he said.

Now, as the presumptive Republican nominee, McCain should take this same stubbornness and sense of principle and apply it to the broad agenda he needs to push.

Hispanics are the youngest major demographic group in the country. Their median age is 27, compared to 36 for the overall population. They account for 14 percent of our population today, but this is projected to increase to 29 percent by 2050.

As a population that is young and rapidly increasing, with a growing stake in the future of this country, Hispanics should be thinking hard about what kind of future that will be.

Long-term economic growth is vital. In the U.S. and all over the world, studies have demonstrated that low taxes foster growth and high taxes inhibit it. Hispanic citizens should be taught that keeping taxes low limits the growth of government and is essential to their economic future.

Hispanics should understand that today's entitlements crisis will fall disproportionately on them. Combined spending today on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is about 8 percent of our gross domestic product. By 2050, when almost a third of Americans will be of Hispanic origin, this entitlement burden will more than double to around 18 percent of our GDP. Our payroll tax burden will also have to double to meet these obligations.

Fundamental reform of entitlements should be of particular interest to Hispanics.

Consider the proposal, now at a standstill, of changing Social Security from a tax-and-spend program to an ownership regime.

According to the Heritage Foundation calculator, today's 27-year-old Hispanic male can expect a -.7 percent return on his payroll taxes at retirement. If he could keep those payroll taxes and invest long-term in a highly diversified portfolio of minimum risk, he'd more than triple his monthly retirement income.

In a 2005 survey done by the Pew Hispanic Center, 49 percent of Hispanics favored personal retirement accounts.

How about education?

Colin Powell's organization, America's Promise, released a study earlier this year reporting the nationwide graduation rate from our public schools at 76.2 percent. Among Hispanics that rate is 57.8 percent. The Los Angeles Unified School District, where the majority of students is Hispanic, had a graduation rate of 45.2 percent.

Hispanics should be clamoring for challenging the government school monopoly and pushing for change that Republicans and conservatives have been championing for years. School choice.

Hispanics should be reminded that they left countries like Mexico, Cuba, and Honduras, where excessive and oppressive governments limit growth and opportunity, to come to a country where opportunity exists. Why would they want to kill the goose laying those eggs of opportunity by supporting the same kinds of ideas about government that they left behind?

Individual freedom, limited government, and traditional values combine to create the American recipe for greatness. McCain must tell the story and provide stark contrast with the big government and moral relativism being sold again by Democrats.

Hispanics may grasp the truth when they hear it.

If not, at least he will have said what needs to be said. After all, everyone's future is at stake.

Source: Dakota Voice

Hispanics want to vote, but many can't

July 6, 2008
By Ashley Kelly

As campaign volunteers register voters for the November presidential election, they've run into a problem — citizenship.

While a number of the city's Hispanic residents want to vote, many are ineligible because they're not U.S. citizens.

"There is a real desire to participate and such energy and knowledge, but they feel disempowered about how to participate," said Jerry Maldonado, a volunteer who recently participated in a voter registration drive in Washington Heights in the city.

About 80 percent of the Hispanics Maldonado met were residents but not citizens, he said. Many told Maldonado that navigating the citizenship process was a struggle.

The citizenship issue is not unique to Newburgh, where 36 percent of the residents are Hispanic, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. The issue has also played out on the national stage.

The Missouri legislature is pushing for an amendment to its state constitution that would require proof of citizenship for registered voters. According to the New York Times, backers of the amendment say it's intended to prevent illegal immigrants from influencing the political process.

"There are some here who can vote, but just as many who can't," said Democratic volunteer Shellye Schoonmaker, noting a large number of undocumented workers in the city.

Schoonmaker has reached out to local business owners in the Hispanic community to draw new voters into the political process by distributing bilingual materials.

A 2007 report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington, D.C., found that 4.7 million Hispanics out of 16.6 million are U.S. citizens. The report cited citizenship as one of the factors that diminishes their electoral power, which will comprise 9 percent of the national electorate this year. Previous trends indicate that Hispanics will make up 6.5 percent of the voters who turn out in November, according to the report.

"We're missing out on people who really work hard to take care of their families and want to be a part of the process," said Sonia Ayala, a Barack Obama delegate.

On the local level, Maldonado said more outreach and information about how to navigate through the citizenship process is essential.

Source: Times Herald-Record

What Latinos want from their president

Any candidate who wants to attract this crucial voting bloc must address racial equality.

July 2, 2008
By Alberto R. Gonzales

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign has reignited an examination of race relations in America. It has led some to question how deep the divide is between black and white Americans. From my perspective, the question ignores the reality of our diverse society. We must also consider the divide between the majority from another group, one that I happen to belong to: Latinos.

According to the Pew Research Center, Latinos are the nation's largest minority group, at 42 million people and 14% of the population. By 2050, that population will triple, to 128 million, which will be 29% of the American population.

Those numbers are already having a political impact. Just how strong it may be could become clear in November. In a close presidential election, the Latino vote could decide the outcome. For example, in the closely contested strategic states of New Mexico, Florida and Colorado, Latinos make up, respectively, 37%, 14% and 12% of eligible voters.

The conventional wisdom is that Latinos vote Democratic. But not necessarily. In 1999, according to a Pew Hispanic Center report published in 2007, Democrats enjoyed a 33% advantage over Republicans in partisan allegiance among Latino registered voters. However, in 2003, a sufficient number of Latinos voted for Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger (over a respected Latino Democrat) to make Schwarzenegger the governor of California. In 2004, President Bush won a historic percentage of the Latino vote (more than 40%). By 2006, again according to the Pew Hispanic Center, the Democrats' edge in partisan allegiance had dropped to 21%.

Pew's numbers now show that Latino voters are heading back into the Democratic fold, but the message in these voting patterns and in the demographic projections is that neither party can afford to take the Latino vote for granted.

The great diversity within the Latino population presents a challenge for both parties. Mexican Americans in Texas, Cuban Americans in Florida and Puerto Rican Americans in New York do not agree on every issue. But -- while I can't speak for all Latinos -- I believe there are issues that resonate for us all.

Among them, of course, is immigration. Latino support will swing to the political party that has the courage and fortitude to put forward a specific immigration solution that is effective and efficient in securing our borders, that supports the economic interests of the nation and that is compassionate in a way that is consistent with the character of a nation of immigrants.

Beyond immigration, both parties need to forge closer relationships with Latino voters. They need to connect with and make use of surrogates, as the Democrats have done with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. They need to make more contact, an effort both parties launched last weekend, when they spoke to a conference of Latino elected and appointed officials in Washington. More important, they need to embrace policies from the Latino point of view.

What is that point of view? For starters, we may now wear suits on Wall Street or Main Street, but we know the experience -- personally or from our parents and grandparents -- of working in the fields, on the docks and in the kitchen. We want a job, not a handout. We value opportunity over more government. We are risk takers, willing to bet on ourselves and start a business. We want a society that recognizes and rewards us based on our hard work and ingenuity, not our skin color.

We are unabashedly proud of America, and we are prepared to enlist, fight and die for this country, sometimes even without the right to vote for its leaders. We believe an education represents freedom in America, and we are willing to work multiple jobs so our children can go to college.

Finally, although we know that America strives to be a fair country, the harsh reality is we are not one nation with liberty and justice for all. And yet equal opportunity -- to a job, to capital and to credit -- is a cornerstone of American success. The promise of equal opportunity is what drew our parents and grandparents and what still draws immigrants to the U.S., and it is what firmly knits them into the country once they are citizens.

As we move to the next phase of the presidential campaign, some people may try to discourage discussion about race relations in favor of issues they say are of greater importance: the war against Al Qaeda, the cost of energy, the sub-prime mortgage crisis. However, we need leaders who appreciate -- and who choose to confront -- the crucial elements of racial inequality within these so-called bigger issues. Those are the leaders who are likely to be successful in finding effective solutions to our most important challenges.

I have said often that Latinos share a common prayer: "Just give me a chance to succeed." I believe that the candidate who will win Latino votes is the one who understands that desire and who will engage the issue of racial equality for Americans of all colors. It's politically wise. More important, it is the right thing to do for our nation.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Obama dominates McCain among Hispanics: poll

July 2, 2008
Via AFP

Democrat Barack Obama has a dominant lead over Republican John McCain among Hispanic voters, despite his struggle to woo the key bloc during his presidential primary campaign, a poll found Wednesday.

A Gallup survey put Obama up 59 percent to 29 percent over his rival among registered Hispanic voters across the United States. The community will likely play a pivotal role in general election swing states like Colorado, New Mexico and Florida.

The poll was published as McCain made a three-day trip through Colombia and Mexico, designed to burnish his foreign policy credentials, which was also seen as an attempt to win favor among Hispanic voters in the United States.

The poll appears to indicate that many Hispanic voters have shifted their support to Obama from his vanquished Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, who built a Latino powerbase during the fiercely contested nominating contest.

In nationwide "Super Tuesday" primary contests in February for instance, Clinton won the Latino vote by around two-to-one over Obama, according to exit polls.

Gallup said that support for Obama was consistent across demographic groups in the Hispanic community. Only 18 percent of the survey sample identified themselves as Republicans.

McCain's hopes of attracting a strong vote from Hispanics were hampered by the failure of a comprehensive immigration reform bill in Congress last year, which he supported, despite the risk of alienating conservative Republicans.

The Arizona senator now says that vigorous border enforcement measures must be put in place before the status of millions of illegal immigrants living in America can be addressed.

The nationwide Gallup survey was conducted among 4,604 Hispanic registered voters, between March 7 and June 30, with a margin of error of plus two percentage points.

Hispanic group in state fears rise in race profiling

July 1, 2008
By Devona Walker

Members of the Governor's Advisory Council on Latin American and Hispanic Affairs expressed grave concerns Monday about what they say is an increase in racial profiling and human rights violation against immigrants.

The group penned a letter to law enforcement agencies in the state, stating the group's intention to be vigilant advocates on behalf of the Hispanic people. The agency also began to plan a series of events and meetings with the goal of amending House Bill 1804, Oklahoma's immigration law.

"We want the police departments to know we are watchdogs of justice, and ultimately justice will prevail. We will be vigilant,” said council member Sebastian Lantos, a Tulsa businessman. "We know that not all law enforcement is bad, but there are some bad apples.”

In 2007, the Greater Tulsa Hispanic Affairs Commission expressed similar concerns after an increase in police activity, including a rise in deportations. Council members say complaints in both Oklahoma City and Tulsa have increased since the passage of HB 1804. In some cases, they say U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent have been unlawfully detained for extended periods of time because they have been mistaken for being undocumented immigrants. More routine, however, have been the incarceration of immigrants following routine traffic stops.

‘Living the Hitler era'
"I am very emotional with this because I see families being divided. ... We are living the Hitler era,” said Guillermo Rojas, a Tulsa restaurateur. "These people are coming from work and they never see their home again because of a simple traffic ticket.”

The vast majority of Oklahoma's deportations, according to both the Mexican Consulate and local law enforcement agencies, have followed routine traffic stops.

"In 20 years I want to be able to say I did as much as I could to stop this. I think we are at a historic point. Even if we make a mistake, even if it's a bit too much,” Lantos said.

Council to meet with four counties
The advisory council plans to invite the sheriffs from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Pottawattomie and Texas counties to its next meeting. Members said they chose counties with the greatest concentration of Hispanic people as well as departments generating the most complaints.

Source: The Oklahoman

Views of whites, Latinos toward Barack Obama analyzed

June 30, 2008
By Don Frederick

In two new articles, pollsters put the attitudes of A) non-Latino white voters and B) Latino voters toward Barack Obama under a microscope.

In the Wall Street Journal today, Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute writes that he finds it "more than a little ironic that it has taken the first African-American to win a major party presidential nomination to make clear to everyone what has been the case for more than 40 years in presidential elections: Democrats have a problem with white voters."

Brown doesn't specify that the white voters to which he and other pollsters refer excludes those of Latin American descent. But we checked with him and that's the case.

In his piece, which can be read in full here, he notes that no Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson, in his 1964 landslide, has won a majority of this white vote. He argues: "For those voters, especially ones without college degrees, the fact that Sen. Obama is black may not be as much a disqualifier as his background as a Democrat from the Frost Belt with no national security or executive experience and a voting record judged by the nonpartisan National Journal as the Senate’s most liberal during 2007."

The Chicago Tribune's Swamp blog has its take on Brown's column here.

On the Huffington Post Saturday, two members of the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Democratic polling firm made their case for debunking the notion that the Latino vote is up for grabs in November's election.

Mark Feierstein and Ana Iparraguirre write that Obama's relatively weak performance among Latinos in his primary battle with Hillary Clinton (who dominated among those voters) "has helped fan the idea that he has a Latino problem or that Hispanics are disinclined to vote for black candidates."

Not so, they contend. They note that national polls have shown that Obama "is running well ahead of John McCain among Hispanics, and significantly better than John Kerry did against George Bush in 2004."

That may be how it plays out ...

... in November's vote, but before then both Obama and McCain apparently have some repair work to do with Latino media outlets, including bloggers.

In this piece for Politico.com, Gebe Martinez says that Spanish-language media have been "blogging, writing and outright complaining that the presidential campaigns have not been paying attention to them."

Frustration with the Obama campaign boiled over during a recent conference call with Robert Gibbs, the candidate's communications director, Martinez reports.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Immigration policy reform has Obama, McCain in agreement

Speaking before an important Latino organization, both candidates identify the issue as a top priority -- and then emphasize the distinctions between their views.

June 29, 2008
By Richard Simon

Courting the increasingly influential Latino vote, the rival presidential candidates each pledged Saturday to make overhauling the nation's immigration policies a top priority.

In separate appearances before the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain looked for every possible way to connect with their audience and emphasize distinctions between themselves.

Before the candidates spoke, Adolfo Carrion Jr., the association president and Bronx Borough president, laid down the stakes: "I believe that we will determine the outcome of the 2008 presidential election."

Perhaps with that in mind, Obama delivered a few lines in Spanish -- "Sí, se puede," or "Yes, we can," he said -- and recalled marching in the streets of Chicago in support of immigration reform. He offered his historic campaign to become the first African American president as a signpost for others.

"I'm hoping that somewhere out there in the audience sits the person who will be the first Latino nominee in their party," he said.

McCain noted that he represents Arizona, "where Spanish was spoken before English," and remembered a fellow Vietnam prisoner of war, Everett Alvarez, "a brave American of Mexican descent."

McCain said that he pushed for overhauling immigration laws when "it wasn't very popular with some in my party."

Both political camps are working hard for the Latino vote. A projected 9.3 million Latinos will go to the polls this year, up from 7.6 million in 2004 and 2.5 million in 1980, according to the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at USC. In California, more than 2.6 million Latinos will cast votes this year, up from about 2.1 million in 2004, the institute projects.

Latinos loom as a potential swing vote, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, because they constitute an important share of the electorate in four of six states that President Bush carried by margins of 5 percentage points or fewer in 2004 -- New Mexico, Florida, Nevada and Colorado.

Latinos voted for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton over Obama by a nearly 2-to-1 margin in the Democratic primaries nationwide -- and by 67% to 32% in the California primary, according to an analysis of exit polls by the Pew Hispanic Center. A Gallup Poll last month showed Obama leading McCain among Latino voters, 62% to 29%.

"This election could well come down to how many Latinos turn out to vote," Obama said Saturday.

On the central question of providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, he accused McCain of shifting positions to suit his audience.

"When he was running for his party's nomination, he walked away from that commitment," Obama said. "He said that he wouldn't even support his own legislation if it came up for a vote."

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers issued a statement later in the day calling it "audacious" for Obama to question McCain's commitment to immigration reform and criticizing Obama's record on the issue.

McCain, who faces a tough balancing act in attempting to win Latino support without losing conservative votes, said that overhauling immigration policies will be "my top priority yesterday, today and tomorrow." But he said that tightening security at the borders was crucial to winning support for an overhaul.

"Many Americans, with good cause, did not believe us when we said we would secure our borders, and so we failed in our efforts," he said. "We must prove to them that we can and will secure our borders first, while respecting the dignity and rights of citizens and legal residents of the United States."

He pledged to address the issue "in a humane and compassionate fashion."

"I understand these are God's children," he said.

Obama, also calling for securing the borders, called for bringing "12 million people who are here illegally out of the shadows" and putting them on a pathway to citizenship after paying a fine, learning English and going to the "back of the line."

While calling for tightening security on the borders, he said that if elected he would review the security plans.

"If we think that a wall is the sole solution to the problem, then we're not thinking it through," he said.

McCain was interrupted four times by antiwar protesters. One demonstrator shouted, "We want a peace candidate!" and was ejected from the room. "The one thing Americans want us to stop doing is yelling at each other," McCain said, to applause.

McCain, who met Saturday in Washington with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, defended his support for the war in Iraq. Obama earlier in the day visited wounded war veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, calling later for a "responsible, honorable end" to the war.

McCain took Congress to task for taking a July 4 recess without completing action on a housing rescue plan, calling it "incredible that Congress should go on vacation while Americans are trying to stay in their homes."

Source: Los Angeles Times

We want you: Election rocks to a new Latin beat

June 27, 2008
BY JORDAN LEVIN

They're not just rocking the vote -- they're salseando, perreando and mariachi-ando it.

Latino musicians, actors and celebrities are getting involved in the U.S. presidential campaign to an unprecedented degree this year, from voter-registration campaigns to online music videos for Barack Obama, the candidate drawing the most support from young Latinos.

Such star action could play a significant role in influencing the 18.2 million Hispanics who the Pew Hispanic Center reports are eligible to vote, especially the 7.3 million under 35 and closely tuned to pop music and online culture.

Stars like Juanes, the Colombian rocker, and Los Tigres del Norte, the godfathers of norteño music, are urging fans at their concerts to register to vote, while Dominican merengue legend Juan Luis Guerra and Mexican rockers Mana played a benefit concert in Miami in March for Ya Es Hora (It's About Time), a national campaign to increase citizenship and voter registration among Hispanics.

Actors Rosario Dawson (Men in Black II, 25th Hour) and Wilmer Valderrama (That '70s Show) have made an online telenovela spoof as part of their efforts in spearheading Voto Latino, which seeks to register young Hispanics to vote.

So far, Obama has been the candidate to capture the most attention from Latin stars. There has been no musical or online pop video groundswell for GOP nominee John McCain.

But some political observers caution that just because someone sways to a hip tune online doesn't mean she'll swing the same way in the voting booth.

''These videos are watched for the most part by the people who already support you,'' says Tico Perez, an Orlando political commentator who appears on several national television and radio shows. ``They're great reinforcers but not educators on the issues. The independents are not going to be swayed by videos chanting Obama. They're going to be swayed by the issues.''

Yet there's no denying that this presidential campaign has motivated artists to action.

Producer Andres Levin of the hip Cuban-funk band Yerba Buena and numerous other hot Latin acts pulled together a Latino musical constellation that included pop singers Alejandro Sanz and Paulina Rubio, reggaeton star Don Omar, actors John Leguizamo and George Lopez and In the Heights creator Lin-Manuel Miranda for Podemos Con Obama (We Can With Obama), an online music video that has garnered more than half a million hits since it was posted in early June. Hundreds of thousands more have hit YouTube and other sites to check out other music videos rallying La Raza for the senator from Illinois.

Levin was inspired by Yes, We Can, the star-powered Obama music video by the Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am that became an online phenomenon. ''From seeing the power and effect [the will.i.am] video had, I thought this is something I can do,'' says Levin, who pulled together a group of 24 artists, all of whom appeared for free. ``I'm a producer, an artist, and if there's any way that I can make a change it's gonna be this.''

Many artists were driven to get involved by what they see as the failure of immigration reform and the subsequent backlash of stepped-up border enforcement, workplace raids and deportations.

''The whole caustic nature of the immigration debate and the backlash is hitting home and on a very personal level,'' says Maria Teresa Peterson, executive director of Voto Latino. ``These artists may be successful and achieving their dreams, but they recognize other members of the Latino family who aren't.''

That situation inspired a number of songs, from the Tigres' El Muro to reggaeton duo Calle 13's El Norte. But some musicians wanted to do more than sing about the problem.

GET OUT THE VOTE

''The only thing that can save the Hispanic community in the United States is that those who can, register and vote,'' says Juanes, the multimillion-selling singer who showed voter registration ads on his website and during his recent U.S. tour of venues like Miami's AmericanAirlines Arena and New York's Madison Square Garden.

``It's super fundamental. [Voting] is being able to manage the future, the rights they have as Latin Americans in the U.S.''

Up to now, audiences for the likes of Juanes has not paid much attention to managing their voting rights.

According to a University of Maryland study, only one in six Hispanics ages 18 to 29 is registered to vote, compared to one in two for whites and one in three for African Americans. But young Hispanics are a fast-growing and potentially powerful voting bloc; 50,000 Hispanics turn 18 every month, according to UCLA's School of Public Policy.

That reality has fired up people like Jose Antonio Hernandez, deputy director of Rock the Vote's invigorated Hispanic initiative, which aims to register 250,000 young Hispanic voters. ''We are part of the fabric of this country, and the fact that Hispanics live here and don't get out and vote is detrimental to this community,'' Hernandez says.

Both Voto Latino and Rock the Vote are non-partisan. But their heavy use of pop and online culture and marketing means their efforts dovetail easily with Obama's campaign, which has been adept at integrating the internet and appealing to young people.

OBAMA RALLY

When Miami Latin-fusion favorites DJ LeSpam and the Spam All-Stars played an Obama rally for 16,000 at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise in May, the atmosphere was like that of a rock concert.

The Democratic candidate's mixed race and immigrant father are inspiring to young Hispanics, says Colombian filmmaker Andres Useche, 30, whose song Si Se Puede Cambiar (Yes, We Can Change) has racked up over 300,000 hits since it was posted on YouTube in February.

''I discovered this strong movement of young people who were never involved, . . . who now felt part of a movement,'' Useche says from his home in Los Angeles.

''He's a great example of [how] to be an American; it doesn't matter where you're from,'' says Miguel Orozco, whose videos Viva Obama, a mariachi tune, and Como Se Llama, a reggaeton song, have garnered more than a million hits on YouTube and Orozco's website, www.amigosdeobama.

Even the Cuban-American community, the Hispanic group most traditionally loyal to Republicans, is seeing a political shift along generational lines that's coming out in music. Miami-raised Cuban-American Will Lopez, 40, whose punk band Guajiro sings in Spanish and often about Cuban issues, has used the universal soccer chant of Ole ole ole ole! for the Obama song Ole, Latinos for Hope.

Lopez's stance has caused a ''dinner-table rift'' with his extended Cuban family. But he says he knows of other Cuban Americans his age who are frustrated with the cost of the Iraq war and the lack of progress in Cuba and are ready for a change.

''We are extremely excited about this upcoming election and want to push as many people as we can to be aware and come out to vote,'' Lopez says. ``We personally are for Obama and think it would be a wonderful change for our country.''

Source: The Miami Herald

Obama’s belated Hispanic outreach

June 26, 2008
by Clara Reyes.   

ImageThree weeks ago, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Joe Baca got a phone call. Some 18 months into his presidential campaign, Senator Barack Obama wanted to meet with caucus members.

The meeting, attended by some congressional Hispanics, occurred last week. It was the first time they’d been invited to meet personally with the Democratic presidential nominee.

Late last week, Obama’s campaign announced a forthcoming ad blitz on Spanish-language TV and radio stations and a “significant increase” in Spanish-speaking staffers.

It’s no wonder Hispanic voters – about nine percent of the national eligible electorate -- are either unfamiliar with the candidate or look on his belated courtship as arrogantly self-serving.

Hispanics favored Senator Hillary Clinton over Obama in the Democratic Party primary by a better than 3-1 margin. Obama’s narrow win leaves Democrats and Clinton supporters with three options: Vote with the party; write in Clinton’s name on the ballot in November; or vote for the centrist Republican candidate Senator John McCain.

Dolores Huerta, who founded the United Farm Workers of America with Cesar Chavez, supported Clinton. Huerta has reportedly said that it’s going to be difficult to push for Obama. And it may be telling that Representative Linda Sanchez, a California Democratic, was the only
Latina who attended the CHC meeting with Obama.

A lack of familiarity among Hispanic voters isn’t the only sticking point. There’s the thorny matter of Obama’s voting record; his lack of executive and foreign policy experience; and his longtime association with a clergyman many perceive as an unpatriotic, racist extremist.

While drawing his $169,300 annual salary to represent the people of Illinois on Capitol Hill, Obama’s missed nearly half of all votes in the 110th Congress. (Colorado’s Senator Ken Salazar hasn’t missed any, and New Jersey’s Senator Robert Menendez has missed only 11.)

Obama has so far cast only 339 votes, while Salazar and Menendez have cast 592 votes and 581 votes, respectively, on bills concerning national security; funding for war, farmers, national disaster relief and domestic violence programs; and federal court appointments.

With less than a decade of legislative experience and no experience in executive leadership, national security or representing the United States in relations with other countries, Obama is unfavorably compared by many to McCain. The senator from Arizona has served in Congress since 1983. He’s the senior Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and member and former chair of Senate committees on Commerce, Science and Transportation and Indian Affairs. And he’s represented U.S. interests abroad in meetings with foreign heads of state and business leaders.

Many Hispanics, who are characteristically patriotic and account for about 10 percent of U.S. military personnel, distrust Obama’s patriotism while relating to McCain, a decorated war veteran and former prisoner of war. And they point to Obama’s longtime association with Reverend Wright, seen on TV this spring calling on God to damn America.

Many Hispanics are also familiar with McCain’s sponsorship of comprehensive, humane immigration reform despite strong party opposition and long before it was politically expedient. He crossed party lines to sponsor one immigration reform bill with Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy.

Even as U.S. politics become more divisive, Hispanics, however loyal to party, are discerning enough to assess each candidate on her or his own merits and vote accordingly. That’s Obama’s biggest stumbling block with the Hispanic electorate.

Source: Dos Mundos

Hispanic Evangelicals and the 2008 Elections; Obama or McCain? Which candidate will Hispanic Evangelicals Support?

June 26, 2008
Via PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE

The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, America's largest Hispanic Evangelical Organization, will host a Summit in Vanguard, California on August 7th and 8th titled "Hispanic Evangelicals and the 2008 Elections. Will this community determine who wins the White House in 08'?" Dr. Jesse Miranda, Chief Executive of the NHCLC believes the summit speaks to emergence of the Hispanic Evangelical Community as a viable and significant ecclesiastical, social and political force in the American religious and political landscape.

"Our strength lies in the fact that we stand as a people committed to both a Kingdom message of Salvation and a societal message of transformation. As brown evangelicals take center stage as the fastest growing force in the Hispanic American family, we will address the issues important to our people and contextualize them within the framework of the 2008 elections," declared Miranda.

The Jesse Miranda Center will host the event on the campus of Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, California. Both the Obama and McCain campaigns, which already via telephone conference and representatives attended the 2008 National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference Board Convention in Chicago last April and addressed more than 1,200 attendees in the annual service, committed to participating. "Which issue will take center stage this election and which candidate will better serve our concerns? This summit will present a national platform for a most necessary discussion on race, the Latino community, faith and the 2008 elections," explained Dr. Miranda.

Gentrification divides Echo Park community in Los Angeles

By Scott Gold
June 27, 2008

In the span of three hours Tuesday night, the 21 men and women who form the Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council found the time to accuse one another, loudly and publicly, of "whining" and "bullying," of racism and reverse racism, of violating the separation of church and state, and of cultural insensitivity.

Council President Jose Sigala was in dire need of a gavel, banging his pen on the table with increasing urgency while trying to shout down his out-of-order colleagues: "Mr. Cebada! Stick to the agenda!" "Mrs. Mendoza! There are children in the audience -- including your own!"

The audience at the school auditorium was no more civilized. One woman called a councilman an unprintable epithet.Sigala pleaded with another woman to wait to speak until a public comment period. "Rules?" she replied, incredulously. Sigala intimated that if she kept it up, she might have to be removed. She was 80 years old.

By 9:30, a councilwoman was slamming her palm on the table, pleading for one last vote -- on a $1,000 budget item that had been the source of more bickering. A school official flickered the lights, reminding them that once again they had gone past their allotted time at the school and forcing them, mercifully, to wrap it up.

"Well," Sigala said on his way out, without a hint of irony, "everyone decided to behave themselves tonight."

Considering how the council has behaved of late -- and that Echo Park is in the grips of a venomous dispute over gentrification and the future of the storied neighborhood -- he was right.

Power of the people

The Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council is one of 88 neighborhood councils created in Los Angeles in the last nine years. Each is a junior varsity city council of sorts, with the ability to pass judgment on new development and other things, but its power lies largely in advising politicians who have real power.

The system was created with good intentions, to empower local neighborhoods that felt disconnected from City Hall.

But creating 1,500 new politicians was never going to be pretty. Some councils have degenerated into fiefdoms and glorified homeowners associations. There have been allegations of theft and brazen violations of open government laws. Echo Park is hardly the worst of the lot.

But the divide here is particularly resonant because at its heart is the sort of gentrification shaping so many neighborhoods in the interior of Los Angeles.

Echo Park was one of the first L.A. suburbs and, later, was the site of some the city's first white flight.Now, the Anglos are coming back -- white return? -- and in recent years, that has begun to redefine life in the ethnic enclave that developed in their absence. Latino businesses and families have been pushed out, largely by rising rents.

Construction proposals began popping up in the community, and many didn't look like the bungalows and cottages that had long peppered the hillsides of Elysian Heights, Angelino Heights and the neighborhoods around Dodger Stadium. They were condos.

Condos began to take on great symbolic meaning among some Latinos, because the perceived market -- younger people, many with money and without children -- did not look like Echo Park. Not like ethnic Echo Park, anyway.

Complaints were rising that the neighborhood council was rubber-stamping development with little regard for issues such as affordable housing.

"At the end of the day," Sigala said, "it was an issue of arrogance."

Latino leaders began looking at the makeup of the council, which in 2006, Sigala said, had one Latino but represented a neighborhood that was nearly 70% Latino.

"Race became a proxy," said Greg Morrow, an incoming member of the council's planning and land-use committee who is pursuing his doctorate in urban planning at UCLA and is building two homes he designed in Echo Park. "It became a proxy for the issues people were talking about -- for social change. Cities evolve, but when you get down to it, people are just not into change."

Line in the sand

The morning of June 12 started off pleasantly enough for Christine Peters, going to meet at a friend at Delilah Bakery on Echo Park Avenue.

Peters has lived here for 18 years, and she is the kind of activist that leaves you thinking, "I'm glad somebody does that stuff around here, and I'm glad it's not me." That morning, she walked in to hear another activist spitting through a description of a corrupt, racist politician who takes illicit money from developers. "I thought, 'My God, who is she talking about?' " Peters said. "Eventually it dawned on me, 'She's talking about me!' "

Earlier this month, after two years of rancor, leading candidates in the latest neighborhood council election divided themselves into two slates. Both made a variety of promises to voters. But there was no escaping the awkward fact that one slate, with Sigala at the top of the ticket, was made up almost entirely of Latinos; the other, with Peters at the top, challenging Sigala for the presidency, was almost entirely white.

Peters lost to Sigala, and her slate lost almost every race. Nine of the 10 people on Sigala's slate won their races. In two election cycles, the Latino community went from a single representative on the neighborhood council to a dozen, Sigala said.

Echo Park has a long and proud history of liberal politics; candidates on both sides considered themselves progressives committed to diversity and the working class. The caricature painted of those who lost, Peters said, was unrecognizable.

"People here seem to believe that because they are angry they don't have to be civil," Peters said. "From my perspective, we've lost a sense of community."

At this point, it is difficult to see how the two sides could come together.

This week, Peters and two allies challenged the results of the election with the Los Angeles city clerk. Their allegations included election notices mailed to the wrong addresses, mysterious bags of ballots brought to the polls and a flier distributed by the opposing slate that said it was the "official" poll guide, a misleading description, the challengers said.

It's little but sour grapes, said Francisco Torrero, the incumbent treasurer, who ran unopposed as a member of the winning slate.

"There was no hanky-panky," he said.

At the board meeting Tuesday, Councilman Augustine Cebada argued that the challenge itself was evidence of arrogance and racism. "Stop whining and crying!" he shouted. "It's over!"

Sitting in the audience, Morrow offered a weary smile. Morrow was among the losing candidates in the recent election, but he is still expected to serve on the planning and land-use committee, and he has acted recently as a liaison between developers and residents. At this point, he said with a sigh, "if you are neutral, you are treated with suspicion."

It will be difficult, Morrow said, for anyone to lay claim to the mantle of power, though many will try. Fewer than 800 people voted. And while in neighborhood council elections it is hard to estimate the number of potential voters -- the rules are more relaxed than in most elections -- it is believed that the council serves a minimum of 50,000 people. That means turnout was, at best, less than 2%.

"That's the thing," Morrow said. "Neither side can claim to really speak on behalf of the community."

Source: Los Angeles Times