Election Unspun July 8 - Obama and McCain's Centrist Latino Message

Candidates Centrist Latino Message

Both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama are on a Latino voter tour.  Today both will speak at the LULAC's annual conference, last week they spoke at NALEAO, and next week they will address members of The National Council of La Raza.  Election Unspun's Dori Smith speaks to Latino voters in Connecticut who say issues important to them are health care, the war in Iraq, and the economy

Latino voter: I would like to see the Latino vote or the Hispanic vote get behind someone who is going to get the country together.

Juan Arreola and his family were having a night out in Willimantic, Connecticut at the Third Thursday Street Festival, a popular monthly feast and party. He is unsure who he'll vote for: "Anybody who is like Bill Richardson, he's a well rounded politician and he can probably appease anybody and everybody and we need to end the war and hopefully he'll be able to do that, and lower food prices."

His wife Dayna McDermit-Arreola is a Democratic Registrar of Voters in Connecticut: "But my little girl, I had the news on and we don't discuss politics with her but she said Oh, yeah he's gonna run for President! Obama's is! And I said are you voting for him? And she said yeah, and I said why, and she said because he's brown like me."

Dayna gladly supports Obama and she accepts that race is a big factor in the election. But she warns against making assumptions about Latino voters. "I've heard as many Republicans who intend to vote for Obama as I have Democrats who aren't sure yet because their affiliation was more closely with Hillary Clinton."

Both John Mccain and Barack Obama realize that Latino voters will play a key role in the election. They are revamping their media outreach programs, visiting Latino neighborhoods, and cultivating support from leaders of the Latino community. Obama has one big advantage in that like George Bush he speaks a bit of Spanish. Here he is with Puerto Rican voters:  Barack Obama: (in Spanish): "I was born on an island and I understand that food, gas, and everything costs more."

John McCain has produced ads aimed at Latino viewers by including Spanish subtitles. His campaign put Hessy Fernandez of the Republican National Committee on the tap during their conference calls in case members of the Hispanic media have questions. On her first day Fernandez didn't get any questions: "Oh no. There was no Hispanic press on this call." 

Fernandez said McCain's message on specific issues would appeal to Latino voters: "Everything I believe, family values, economic policies, national security."

Latino voters like Angel Crispin, a laundry worker in Willimantic, say they're looking for new, more personal messages. "I think it's something different, a new generation of young blood to see what they can do in society today, in this world today."
        
Otha Cannon, OC, is a Chef at the University of Connecticut. He plans to vote for Obama because of the Iraq War and the economy. "Let's stop the war now. Too many of our kids is not coming back home.  Let's deal with what's going on here at home in the United States because I believe in a couple more years believe it or not you can't say but that the United States is going to turn into a third world country too."

In 2007 New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson referred to Latino voters as a sleeping giant. That giant is now clearly awake. Latino voters are expected to make up 10 percent of the electorate in 2008.

PART 2 As McCain is from Arizona, a southwestern state with a large number of Latino immigrants, and as Barack Obama, for the first time in decades, working to turn the southwestern states of Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico Democrat, and with Florida in play, Latino's will be a crucial voting block.  Roberto Lavato, wirter for New American Media and the Nation Magazine.