By Hans Nichols, Bloomberg

Bill Richardson’s nomination as Commerce secretary won’t satisfy top Latino lawmakers, who sent President-elect Barack Obama’s transition office a letter yesterday afternoon recommending a slate of 14 Hispanics for the remaining eight Cabinet slots.

“We’d definitely be disappointed,” if Richardson, 61, a former energy secretary and United Nations ambassador, were the lone Latino in Obama’s Cabinet, said California Representative Joe Baca, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He warned that Obama’s legislative agenda could be jeopardized if the president-elect doesn’t nominate additional Hispanics.

“If it’s just one, he’s going to have to answer to a lot of the issues that come before us,” Baca said in an interview.

There could be one more appointment soon. Two Democrats close to Obama’s transition office said that Representative Xavier Becerra, a California Democrat, has been offered the job of U.S. trade representative. The two Democrats didn’t say Becerra, 50, will accept the post.

Obama’s victories in New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, all states carried by President George W. Bush in 2004, was “in large measure because of Hispanic support,” said Representative Charles Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat. Election-day exit polls of Latinos gave Obama a 2-to-1 advantage on Nov. 4.

Obama is expected to announce Richardson’s selection today in Chicago, a Democratic official said.

Becerra, who once declared U.S. trade policy was “broken completely,” would take part in global trade talks, negotiate with China on product-safety issues and possibly renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Caucus Recommendations

The Hispanic Caucus letter recommends Colorado Representative John Salazar for agriculture secretary, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion for Housing and Urban Development secretary and Texas Assemblyman Rick Noriega for veterans’ affairs secretary, among others.

Baca described the letter, sent to transition director John Podesta, as the “the beginning of demonstrating that we are ones to be reckoned with and not to be taken lightly.” Baca and Gonzalez signed the letter on behalf of the 21-member caucus.

Richardson is the highest-profile Latino elected official in the U.S. Before being elected as governor of New Mexico in 2002 and winning a second term in 2006, he served in two Cabinet positions in President Bill Clinton’s administration and eight terms in the U.S. House.

Endorsed Obama

Richardson ended his own bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in January and later endorsed Obama, calling him a “once-in-a-lifetime leader” who can unite the country. That move was a rebuke to Hillary Clinton, and her husband publicly lashed out at Richardson at the time.

For several weeks, Baca and Gonzalez led a group of 10 lawmakers to create a list for Obama’s transition team, which was approved by a required two-thirds of the caucus members.

“We understand that the incoming administration will have a vast pool of talent from which to choose,” wrote Baca and Gonzalez. “The individuals we have endorsed constitute the best talent, while reflecting the diversity that is so valued by President-elect Obama.”

Baca expects Obama to improve upon the two Hispanics that Presidents Clinton and Bush had in their Cabinets. “We’ll start with two and then work for three,” he said. “But it’s got to be more than what we’ve had.”

Bush, Clinton Picks

Bush began his first term with Mel Martinez serving as Housing and Urban Development secretary and Alberto Gonzales as his White House counsel. In his second term, Bush promoted Gonzales to attorney general and had Carlos Gutierrez as his commerce secretary.

Clinton started off with Henry Cisneros at HUD and Federico Pena as transportation secretary and then later as his energy secretary, until Pena was replaced by Richardson.

Gonzalez said he was “confident” that Obama will select additional Hispanics for his Cabinet, insisting that “the process is still in play.” He cheered the choices of Louis Caldera to head the White House Military Affairs Office and Cecilia Munoz as White House director of intergovernmental affairs.

Other Latino lawmakers, while insisting that Hispanics deserved credit for the Democrats’ victory, said they weren’t focused on Obama’s final Cabinet tally. Representative Linda Sanchez, who left the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in 2006 but was still recommended the group as a potential labor secretary, said “for me it’s not a numbers game.”

She criticized Baca for “speaking a little hastily,” in setting down firm demands that Obama appoint more than two Hispanics. Baca is “very strident and he’s very passionate,” about wanting to ensconce Hispanics in influential positions.

Clinton Alumni

Republicans, meanwhile, had their own criticism of the Richardson pick. “Nothing says change like picking the Clinton administration’s energy secretary and UN representative to be commerce secretary,” said Alex Conant, a spokesman at the Republican National Committee.

Obama already has tapped top officials from the Clinton administration, including former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers to be his White House economic director, former Treasury official Timothy Geithner as his Treasury secretary, and Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel, who was a special adviser to Bill Clinton, as his chief of staff. Obama also picked Hillary Clinton to be his secretary of state.

“Obama’s Cabinet is starting to look like a Clinton administration reunion,” Conant said.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Election Day is all about the scoreboard.

When it came to Hispanics and the Republican Party, it looked like a piñata party. The GOP got whacked in Florida. Barack Obama beat John McCain 57 percent to 42 percent in the presidential race. Obama tripled John Kerry’s margin from 2004 in Miami-Dade County. Closer to home, Osceola County flipped to Democrats.

For all the ¿ qué pasa? analysis, U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez wasn’t surprised by the welts on GOP faces.

He has a few himself, the price one pays for taking a strong stance advocating immigration reform in a superheated political climate that wasn’t interested in compromise.

Most of the rhetoric came from Republicans who led the charge in killing a reform package in Congress. That helped energize Hispanics — those with voter-registration cards — to say no más on Nov. 4.

The election aftermath leaves Martinez in the ideological cross hairs. His position on immigration reform scored points with Hispanics. His Republican brand took some away.

He’s already considered vulnerable when he’s up for re-election in 2010. There’s talk of the Democrats putting up a strong challenger such as Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink or state Sen.-elect Dan Gelber from Miami Beach.

As his future plays out, Martinez might be in for a few more scars.

“It’s not something I look forward to,” Martinez said of his immigration stance, “but it’s the right thing to do. I didn’t get elected just to work to get re-elected. I believe in what I did. But I’m not kidding you; it wasn’t fun.”

His Hispanic platform isn’t just about immigration reform. As a Cuban-American, Martinez leans to the old worldview of tough love against Cuba. That goes against Obama’s willingness to ease travel restrictions, reflecting the thoughts of a more progressive generation of Cuban-Americans.

And as a supporter of a free-trade deal with Colombia, Martinez also gets caught in the crossfire. Obama isn’t a big fan of the deal. There’s talk of trying to push the arrangement through during the lame-duck session of Congress early next week, with the GOP using it as a negotiating chip for the economic-stimulus package.

Martinez understands that Hispanics aren’t a monolithic group. The needs of Puerto Ricans in Central Florida differ greatly from what’s important to Cuban-Americans in South Florida.

Those differences demand that Martinez be an adept juggler, knowing that the party is counting on him to try to win back the Hispanic base.

As Martinez suggests, there’s going to be a lot of fence-mending within the GOP. That’s a big challenge for a party that’s been all about building fences for the past few years.

Popularity: 9% [?]

by Randy Shaw, BeyondCron

Among the most overlooked stories this political season was the major impact of Latino voters in Barack Obama’s red state victories. While Latinos’ 67% support for Obama has gotten some attention, the media has largely overlooked the fact that Latino immigrants backed Obama by a 78% margin, and their support was critical in the Democrat’s narrow victories in Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia. The Immigrant Policy Center has released a new analysis of Latino immigrant voting, which deserves the widest possible attention for revealing the importance of the immigration issue in key swing states. The Center’s analysis confirms that comprehensive immigration reform must be a priority for President Obama’s first year in office, and that Latino immigrants are ready to push the issue.

The Immigrant Policy Center released the following analysis this week:

Latinos weren’t the only group that flexed its muscles this past Election Day. New Americans — naturalized citizens and the U.S.-born children of immigrants who were born during the current era of immigration that began in 1965—make up another important demographic group that demonstrated its ability to swing an election. While complete data on New Americans is not yet available, exit polling among Latinos and Latino immigrants tell two important stories.

First, Latino immigrants voted for Obama at a higher margin than native-born Latinos. While Obama made an impressive gain among native-born Latino voters, capturing 67% of the Latino vote compared to Kerry’s 56% in 2004, the records were smashed with Latino immigrant support coming in at a whopping 78%. What charged the immigrant vote? Immigration.

Meanwhile, these New American Latino voters made a difference in districts we’ve never detected their presence in before. In unprecedented fashion, they provided the critical, extra push for Obama in North Carolina and Indiana, without which victory would have been impossible in those states; and played a significant role in winning Virginia. These findings suggest that immigrants are having a tsunami impact beyond the Sunshine and Rocky Mountain states and throughout the country.

A preliminary analysis conducted for the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) by Rob Paral and Associates explores the electoral power that was exhibited on Election Day by Latino New Americans and shows:

Indiana and North Carolina Latino New American Voters Helped Push Obama to Victory.

* In North Carolina, Obama won by approximately 14,000 votes and received the votes of nearly 26,000 more Latino New Americans than McCain—nearly double the margin of victory.

* In Indiana, Obama won by roughly 26,000 votes, and received the votes of nearly 24,000 more Latino New Americans than John McCain. The additional votes that Obama received from Latino New Americans who chose him over McCain equals more than 90% of his margin of victory.

Virginia’s Latino New American Voters Amounted to a Fifth of Obama’s Margin of Victory.

* In Virginia, Obama won by roughly 156,000 votes, and received the votes of approximately 35,000 more Latino New Americans than McCain. The number of additional votes that Obama received from Latino New Americans who chose him over McCain was equal to one-fifth (more than 20%) of his margin of victory.

Immigrants Voted for Obama Largely Due to Their Concerns About Immigration.

Interviews conducted by Bendixen & Associates among Latino immigrant voters just before the election found that “a rise in discrimination against Hispanics because of the tone of the immigration debate contributed to the rejection of the Republican nominee for President.”

Based on this voter analysis, the Immigrant Policy Center concludes “President-elect Barack Obama and the 111th Congress cannot afford to disregard the needs and future of the fastest growing part of the American electorate without facing a backlash in 2012. These stunning election results represent a clear mandate to work towards enacting reform that restores the rule of law, renews confidence in America’s immigration system and realistically tackles illegal immigration.”

In assessing the prospects for comprehensive immigration reform, two points are increasingly clear.
First, it will be far easier for Congress to enact a reform measure in 2009 than in 2010. Legalization advocates recognize that the economic crisis, health care reform, and the drive for a new energy policy will take precedence, but there is a place for immigration reform by next fall.

Second, success requires the entire immigrant rights movement to mobilize its base. Not all House and Senate Democrats support legalization. I think Nancy Pelosi will make sure that the measure passes the House, but winning majority support in the Senate (and avoiding a filibuster) will require pressure campaigns targeting swing politicians.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Marking a historic shift, Sen. Barack Obama won a majority of Florida’s Hispanic vote statewide and nearly tied Sen. John McCain in Miami-Dade, where Republicans had long dominated the Hispanic vote.

No Democratic presidential candidate had ever achieved either milestone since the exit polling of Hispanics first began in the 1980s, pollsters say.

Nationwide, Obama won the Hispanic vote by a wider margin, garnering 66 percent to McCain’s 32 percent, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

In Florida, Obama won 57 percent of the Hispanics on Tuesday, compared to 42 percent for McCain, according to exit polling by Bendixen & Associates, a Democratic pollster.

By comparison, President Bush won 55 percent of the state’s Hispanic vote to John Kerry’s 44 percent in 2004, according to exit polls.

Polls indicate the state’s Hispanic vote may now be divided. On one side are conservative older Cuban Americans, who vote reliably Republican. On the other are younger Cuban Americans coupled with an expanding number of non-Cuban Hispanics, who tend to lean Democratic.

”This is a demographic revolution happening in Miami-Dade County,” said

Read Complete Story

Popularity: 12% [?]

John McCain never recovered from his uneven response to the economic collapse. Barack Obama pounced, and he never looked back.

By Bob Drogin and Maeve Reston, The Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Phoenix and Washington — On Sept. 21, six days after the stunning collapse of Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc., one of Wall Street’s largest and oldest investment banks, John McCain devoted a total of three sentences to voters’ economic worries in his only campaign event of the day, a speech at a National Guard convention in Baltimore.

Three days later, the Republican presidential nominee pronounced the financial crisis so dire that he needed to suspend his campaign, cancel the first presidential debate and rush back to Washington to help forge a solution to a national emergency.

McCain’s dramatic move not only failed, his baffling shifts in tactics and message backfired so badly he lost his lead in national polls and never recovered. Both sides now say Barack Obama essentially clinched his victory in late September.

“Images of the two candidates changed dramatically,” said David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist. “Obama came across as commanding and knowledgeable, cool, calm. McCain seemed a little bit unsettled, moving from pillar to post.”

As dispirited Republicans sift through the wreckage of Tuesday’s results, many argue that McCain was crippled by public anger at President Bush’s failures at home and abroad. McCain echoed the claim in his concession speech when he said he didn’t know what else he could have done to win.

But if McCain was dealt a bad hand, experts say, he often played it poorly. In decision after decision, he and his aides created problems for themselves and failed to press the advantages they had.

High among them was McCain’s inability to connect with Latino voters.

McCain had hoped Latinos would reward his efforts in Congress to help the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants get on the path to citizenship. But under pressure from his party’s right wing, McCain had abandoned his own proposals during the primaries and instead stressed increasing border security.

The result: He won support from less than a third of Latinos who voted, far fewer than President Bush did four years ago. The difference helped doom McCain in Florida, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, all states that Bush had won.

Steve Schmidt, one of McCain’s top aides, blamed the Republican Party, not the candidate. The GOP “has done all that it can possibly do to antagonize Latino voters in this country,” he complained.

He called it “one of the great ironies or tragedies” that McCain “wound up being punished by Hispanic voters furious at a party they view as hostile” by “taking it out on the candidate who was their best friend.”

The Palin problem

McCain’s choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate helped him with social conservatives. But her views and her performance in interviews alienated many of the independent and swing voters he most needed, and she became a drag on the ticket.

Palin’s aides blame McCain’s staff for constraining her on the stump and exacerbating her problems. They cited a daily struggle between staffers at headquarters and those on the plane, with little cohesion or communication.

“I don’t know if you can honestly say things went wrong,” said a senior aide to Palin. “I just think they were probably mismanaged.”

Exhibit No. 1: the decision to buy $150,000 in clothes and accessories for Palin during the Republican National Convention. Three fashion consultants showed up, the aide said, and “decided, ‘Well, we’re going to go out and dress you up.’ They were with us three times. By the third time, she did not like them. . . . No one liked these women.”

McCain’s aides, not surprisingly, blame forces outside their control.

Charlie Black, one of McCain’s top advisors, argued that McCain’s tactical missteps, even on the economy, were “not very important” compared with the brutal political environment that any GOP candidate faced.

“We had an unpopular Republican president, an unpopular war, a financial crisis, and the press was more against us than at any time in my lifetime,” he said.

The Bush problem
But Obama made sure that voters linked McCain inextricably to Bush and his policies. From the start, Axelrod said, the election always was “going to be about George W. Bush.”

McCain only formulated a strong response in the third presidential debate with Obama, on Oct. 15, when he memorably declared: “I am not George Bush. If you wanted to run against George Bush, you should have run four years ago.”

It was too late. Anxious not to antagonize the core Republican base that still backed Bush, McCain had labeled himself an independent “maverick,” and rarely mentioned Bush’s name on the campaign trail. But he never openly broke with the president.

At the same time, McCain’s campaign tried out and discarded a series of contradictory arguments, never settling on a single compelling narrative.

McCain would tout his four terms in the Senate, but insist that he represented change. He would boast of seeking bipartisanship in Congress, then deliver a roaring attack on congressional Democrats.

Obama’s aides, in turn, argued that McCain’s experience made him appear a creature of Washington. They saw Obama’s campaign, in contrast, as sufficient qualification for most voters in and of itself.

“Campaigns are essentially trials,” Axelrod said. “They’re endurance contests to see who has the stamina and fortitude. If you pass that test, you’ve gone a long way.”

But to prove himself on the world stage, Obama took a weeklong trip to the Middle East, Europe and Afghanistan in July. He met heads of state and spoke to an estimated 200,000 cheering fans in the streets of Berlin. McCain’s team pounced, quickly unveiling an ad that mocked Obama as a “celebrity” like Paris Hilton.

It turned the Democrat’s strength into a weakness. As gas prices soared, McCain went on the offensive, calling for a resumption of offshore drilling. With Obama on the defensive for the first time, McCain began to creep up in polls, taking the lead in early September.

The biggest problem

Then the bottom fell out.

Early on Sept. 15, as Americans were absorbing news of the Lehman Bros. collapse, McCain told a crowd in Jacksonville, Fla., that the “fundamentals of the economy are strong.”

At McCain headquarters in Arlington, Va., an aide interrupted Schmidt in a meeting. Schmidt grabbed the first plane to Florida and, hoping to limit the damage, booked McCain on TV shows, where he tried to reframe his comment as a defense of the American worker.

But the damage was done. McCain compounded his problem by calling for creation of a study group one day and the firing of the Securities and Exchange Commission chief the next, discarding his ideas as quickly as he unveiled them. He appeared unsure and unsteady.

Finally, on Wednesday, Sept. 24, McCain assembled his economic team in New York City. The White House was trying to build support for a $700-billion bailout of financial institutions, and Bush aides were signaling that Republicans would follow McCain’s lead.

McCain’s aides saw two choices — stay out of the negotiations and get blamed if the deal collapsed, or return and try put a more palatable package together.

“Either way, we were in a truly terrible position,” Schmidt said. Returning to Washington at least offered “control over our destiny.”

But McCain’s appearance at the White House meeting proved a disaster. Afterward, Bush began appearing on television, day after day, seeking to calm the nation. McCain’s poll numbers fell almost as fast as the stock market.

“It was devastating,” a senior McCain aide said. “Devastating.”

At every stage, Obama’s speeches, interviews, mailings and paid advertising reinforced the message that McCain, who had voted for 90% of Bush’s policies, essentially represented a third Bush term.

Popularity: 11% [?]

By MIRIAM JORDAN in Los Angeles and LESLIE EATON in Dallas, Wall Street Journal

Record turnout among Hispanic voters helped push Barack Obama over the top in an election that signals the emerging political clout of the nation’s fastest-growing demographic group.

About 10 million Hispanics cast a ballot, up from 7.8 million in the 2004 presidential contest, accounting for 8% of the national voting public, exit polls show. Latinos voted for Sen. Obama over Sen. John McCain nationally by 66% to 32%, marking a dramatic shift toward Democrats from 2004, when more than 50% supported Sen. John Kerry and 40% voted for President Bush.

More important, this election shattered the perception that Latino voters only have a powerful impact in their traditional stronghold of the Southwest. While Latinos were key to Sen. Obama’s victories in both Nevada and New Mexico, where he lost the non-Hispanic white vote, their support also was crucial in hotly contested states such as Virginia and Pennsylvania, where Latinos now represent about 5% of the voting population. In Florida, this election marked the first time that a Democratic presidential candidate won a majority of the Latino vote.

“This election proves Latinos are no longer just a political sideshow,” says Henry Cisneros, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development. “The Latino population is large enough that it moves the needle.”

This newfound clout is only expected to increase in the coming years, as the growth of the Hispanic population outpaces that of the rest of the nation. In 2016, Hispanics are expected to number about 60 million, up from 45 million today. And though Hispanics voted overwhelmingly Democratic this time around, they are likely to be courted heavily by both parties in the future.

“Twenty years from now Latinos will be twice as important as they are today,” says Matt Barreto, a political science professor at the University of Washington who does Hispanic polling.

He also noted that in the next presidential election, Latinos would emerge as an influential voting bloc in more states, such as North Carolina and Georgia. “Within the next decade, Latino voters could become decisive in several second-tier states,” says Prof. Barreto.

The Obama campaign spent heavily to court Latino voters, spending some $20 million, more than half of it on Spanish-language television and radio. It opened campaign offices in areas with a big Hispanic population, and trained Spanish-speaking grassroots workers who went door to door in Latino enclaves to drum up support for Mr. Obama, especially in battleground states.

Latino voters were the second most likely group to vote for Sen. Obama, after African-Americans. Support for Mr. Obama was strong among Latinos in all age groups. About one in five new voters were Hispanic, many of them immigrants who responded to a mass mobilization drive by Hispanic media and community groups to get out the vote. That energized Latino voters, who showed up at the polls in higher percentages than other newly registered voter groups. Relative to 2004, the total number of registered Hispanics soared by 144% in Nevada, 35% in Colorado, 34% in Florida and 30% in New Mexico.

In Florida, where 14% of voters are Latino, 57% of Hispanics backed Sen. Obama compared with 42% who favored the Democratic candidate in 2004, as the influence of older, conservative Cuban-Americans was eclipsed by young Cuban-Americans and South and Central American immigrants.

In the battleground state of Colorado, the Latino vote represented 17% of the voting public, with 73% of Latino voters supporting Sen. Obama. In New Mexico, Latinos constituted 41% of the voting population and 69% of them supported Sen. Obama. In Nevada, the Latino vote was 16% of the voting population, with 78% of them backing the Democratic candidate.

Sen. McCain had hoped to attract Hispanics with his pro-military, anti-abortion stances and his record in favor of immigration reform.

Sen. Obama faced a big initial challenge in attracting Hispanic voters, many of whom had thrown their support behind Sen. Hillary Clinton in the primaries. But the rancorous tone of the immigration debate, coupled with the economic downturn, eventually helped turn Hispanic voters toward Sen. Obama.

“The debate over immigration started driving Hispanic voters toward the Democratic party, and the economic black hole clinched it,” says Sergio Bendixen, a pollster who worked for the Democratic campaign.

Still, some Hispanic advocates believe that the Obama campaign’s success with Latino voters stems in large part from the groundwork laid by Sen. Clinton.

“Republicans have literally driven the fastest-growing group of new voters into the arms of a Democratic Party that hasn’t really worked that hard to get their votes,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an immigrant advocacy group.

Ana Rendon, a 30-year-old office worker in Dallas, recently became a U.S. citizen and voted for the first time Tuesday. She didn’t want to reveal whom she voted for, but she was happy to say why she had gone to the polls: “For us to count here as Hispanics.”

Popularity: 15% [?]

By BARRY MASSEY – AP

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — For someone who dropped out of the presidential race in January, Gov. Bill Richardson just can’t seem to stop campaigning.

The governor has hop-scotched the country on behalf of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

During the past seven months, Richardson has visited 19 states and Puerto Rico and spent 29 days campaigning outside of New Mexico, according to Gilbert Gallegos, a spokesman for the governor. Richardson also has campaigned 14 days in New Mexico, traveling to 13 communities for Obama events.

Richardson is part of a small army of surrogates — from elected officials to entertainers — who appear at campaign rallies and subject themselves to endless interviews by local and national reporters and bloggers. It’s all done under the mantle of party loyalty — getting their party’s nominee elected to the White House.

“Most surrogates don’t matter terribly much but Richardson does because of the nature of the Hispanic and Latino vote,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “This vote is a little more precarious for Obama than some since he lost it 2-to-1 to Hillary Clinton in the primaries and he needs to win it 2-to-1 in the general.”

Richardson, who is the nation’s only Hispanic governor, campaigned last week in Florida — a state in which nearly 20 percent of its 17 million residents are Hispanic. The governor campaigned in Ohio earlier this week and was in Virginia for campaign appearances on Thursday and Friday. Colorado, Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Wisconsin are among the states Richardson previously has visited during the general election campaign season

The governor’s work for Obama has fueled speculation that Richardson is angling for an administration job — possibly a Cabinet appointment — if Obama wins the presidency.

When asked if he would accept a post in an Obama administration, Richardson said, “I never say never, but I am anticipating being governor for two more years. I love my job. I’m not looking for a job. I am not campaigning for any job. I am campaigning intensively for Senator Obama because I believe in him and I believe we need to change the country.”

Richardson told reporters, “I’d say the odds are that I’ll be back dealing with you guys and the Legislature.”

The 2009 Legislature convenes Jan. 20 — the same day the next president will be sworn into office during ceremonies in Washington.

Speculation about Richardson’s political future often focuses on whether he could become secretary of state in an Obama administration. Richardson was ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration and for years has served as a roving diplomatic troubleshooter, including missions to Sudan, North Korea, Cuba and Iraq.

“I’m sure he would love to be secretary of state, no matter what he says about staying in the governorship,” Sabato said in an interview. “And he wouldn’t get criticized. He’s got a Democratic lieutenant governor who is off and running and he could leave a couple of years early and she’d have incumbency for the general election in 2010. Will he be picked? Who knows.”

Richardson said “there’s been no discussions” about a possible job in an Obama administration.

“I think any discussions about transition and Cabinet posts are grossly premature. They should not happen because we haven’t won this race. This is going to be a close race. I think everybody should guard against overconfidence,” said Richardson.

When the governor campaigns for Obama, the campaign covers his travel expenses. However, New Mexico taxpayers pick up the tab for travel by the state police officers who serve as the governor’s security detail. The governor defends that policy although New Mexico is facing a more than $200 million budget shortfall and he’s ordered cuts in travel by state agencies under his control.

“The Obama campaign is not responsible for my security, the state is,” said Richardson. “This is a practice for every governor and their families, so we’re not going to change that.”

Popularity: 11% [?]

By Will Evans, Center for Investigative Reporting

Click here to listen to the anti-Obama ad
Bishop’s Address Spanish.mp3

Retired Texas Bishop Rene Gracida says that Catholics cannot, in good conscience, vote for Obama. Now, in a last-ditch attempt to derail Latino support for Obama, an anti-abortion crusader and anti-illegal immigration activist have teamed up to blast out Gracida’s message by email to nearly three million Latino voters and reaching even more people by radio.

Randall Terry, the aggressive anti-abortion organizer who founded Operation Rescue, says it was his idea. He enlisted Gracida, who made national headlines in 1990 by excommunicating three Catholics for assisting with abortions. In 2004, Gracida gave a special benediction for the Republican National Convention.

In the English-language version of his anti-Obama message, Gracida says, “A Catholic cannot be said to have voted in this election with a good conscience if they have voted for a pro-abortion candidate. Barack Hussein Obama is a pro-abortion candidate.” You can hear the Spanish version here.

Terry called the email blast “a blockbuster because Obama is desperate to take the Hispanic vote.” He told us the emails went to “2.9 million Hispanic voters” as well as “100,000 whites.” He corrected that to “100,000 Americans,” then quickly said that didn’t sound quite right either. He said he hasn’t had much sleep, due to this last-minute effort.

RightMarch.com provided financial and logistical support for the campaign, buying a bit of radio time in Ohio, and procuring the massive email list to reach Latinos.

RightMarch’s president, William Greene, made illegal immigration his top issue last year, when he lost a special election for Congress in Georgia. A fundraising letter of support for Greene from the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps PAC (which we profiled here) described Greene thusly:

* Bill has been a leader in the fight against illegal immigration as a grassroots activist, delivering millions of messages to Capitol Hill from constituents, demanding NO AMNESTY for illegals;
* He has personally mustered with us on the U.S.-Mexican border as a volunteer with the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, standing watch to report the illegals streaming unhindered across our officially undefended Arizona border;
* Bill has helped us to raise tens of thousands of dollars for MCDC operations and projects, such as the Border Fence Project…
* He has pushed hard for congressional bills to de-fund pro-illegal immigration groups like the ACLU and La Raza, to take away their ill-gotten gains stolen from the pockets of unwilling and unsuspecting taxpayers.

Terry said radio hosts are picking up the Bishop Gracida ad and broadcasting it for free. Some individuals are paying for airtime themselves, he said, and one businessman in Ohio paid for a TV version of the ad.

“The glory of this is that it’s free,” Terry said. “It’s viral!”

Here is a translated version of the message sent out:

Dear Friends:

We only have days left before a critical election to elect a new president. In this moment, like no other moment in history, Hispanic votes will decide the future of the United States. That means that we have a great weight of responsibility.

During this election, there are many Catholics who have told the Catholic people that it is ok to vote for Obama for president.

That is simply not true. Unfortunately, it is a lie.

Please, read the words of a beloved Hispanic bishop, Bishop Rene H. Gracida, who has faithfully served the Hispanic Catholics of Florida and Texas.

“I am Bishop Rene A. Gracida, reminding all Catholics that they need to vote in these elections with an informed conscience.

A Catholic cannot say that he/she voted in this election in good conscience if he/she votes for a candidate in favor of abortion.

Barak Hussein Obama is a candidate in favor of abortion.”

This magnificent message of our dear Bishop is available as a radio ad that can be aired on Hispanic radio stations. Click here to listen to this ad. ( http://www.randallterry.com/ ) If you are interested in spreading this message to other Hispanic voters and if you want to give us a donation so that other Catholics can listen to Bishop Gracida, please give what you can as soon as possible. Click here to contribute to our cause.

When we enter the voting booth, we must not forget that Obama supports the killing of unborn babies even until the day they are to be born. This, in the eyes of God, is murder.

We must not help someone who has the intention of killing babies - especially Hispanic babies. It is a fact that Obama has used our tax dollars to place abortion clinics in Hispanic neighborhoods.
Remember that our loyalty to our Lord Jesus Christ is much more important than any political party.
It is your decision for whom you want to vote. There are many candidates that are against the culture of death, who support life and who love the United States and our people, but as Bishop Gracida said - We cannot vote for Obama with a clear conscience.

Again we ask you to give a gift if you can so that more people can listen to Bishop Gracida’s ad, and we also ask for your prayers for this cause in defense of life.

And we ask you to send this message to your friends and your family.

As Catholics, we understand that we owe everything to our God and our Mother, the Virgin of Guadalupe.

May God bless you and whatever happens, remember the words of Bishop Gracida when you enter the voting booth this Tuesday.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Promises to address immigration reform in his first year.

By D. Graglia, Feet in 2 Worlds

Senator Barack Obama appears to have launched a Hispanic version of his closing argument to voters. In an exclusive interview with the Spanish-language newspaper chain ImpreMedia, the Democratic candidate said he intends to “guarantee that [immigration reform] will not be used as a political football” and added that he was “committed” to putting together “a recipe” for immigration reform “starting in my first year” in the presidency.

In his chat with reporter Maribel Hastings of L.A. newspaper La Opinión, he made the disclaimer that if elected president he would have to deal with some more urgent issues at the start of his term. But Obama gave assurances that he is still committed to pushing forward immigration reform during his first year in office. [The interview was available only in Spanish on the chain's website Tuesday: what follows is our translation back into English.]

The Democrat — who’s been warning his supporters against complacency despite his steady lead in the polls — also urged Hispanics to get out and vote. It’s becoming widely accepted that Obama will need Hispanic voters to put him over the top in some key states on the electoral map.

“I hope everyone understands what is at stake: if we’re going to try and make fundamental changes, comprehensive immigration reform, and a health care system that works for everyone, then we will have to see the Hispanic vote get out in record numbers,” he said. “In the battleground states, they can make all the difference in the world.”

Obama said the current economic crisis, rather than generating more opposition to the reform he proposes — which would include a path to legalization for the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants — could help, since it has already slowed the influx of immigrants into the U.S. (And as we reported recently, it is also sending immigrants back home.) Obama said this may relieve some of the pressure on the immigration debate, and repeated that his approach would include more secure borders, severe measures against employers who hire undocumented workers and, at the same time, “a way to citizenship” for people who are “living in the shadows.”

The Democratic candidate added that one of his proposals for combating the crisis, an infrastructure development plan, would favor Hispanics, since many of them work in the construction industry. He also talked about “fixing the health care system” and “guaranteeing the educational system works,” two issues dear to many Hispanic voters.

As part of his closing argument to Hispanics, Obama said this community was hit “harder than anyone else” by the economic downturn. “I think the Latino community has understood that the economy hasn’t worked” for working families and the middle class, he said.

As if to make his final pitch perfect for the coveted Latino voters, the candidate even announced that there will be a Hispanic family in the much-touted Obama infomercial that’s slated to run tonight on NBC, CBS, Fox and also Univision.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Economic Concerns Boost Democrat

By Krissah Williams Thompson, Washington Post Staff Writer

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — The monthly poker night held by members of the Latin-Anglo Alliance here is strictly social. No work. No politics.

It’s a welcome break from the seemingly endless news of the nation’s financial meltdown that has heightened their anxieties about the economy. Jobs in the area are stable, but these poker players are middle-aged and middle-class, with college tuition and retirement to worry about.

Their anxiety mirrors that of other Latinos, who are more likely than other groups to name the economy as their top issue in this election — 60 percent do so, compared with 54 percent of all voters, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll. It also helps explain why Sen. John McCain is struggling to win over Hispanics, a group that many thought he would do reasonably well with only months ago.

Polls show Sen. Barack Obama leading McCain 2 to 1 among Hispanics, after being trounced by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton among such voters in the Democratic primaries. (President Bush won 40 percent of their vote in 2004.) More than two-thirds of Hispanics said they trust Obama to handle the economy, compared with 27 percent who named McCain.

Many here also said they remain upset about the ugly immigration debate last year in which many Republicans demanded full-scale deportation of illegal immigrants. Although McCain then favored a more moderate approach that was supported by many Hispanics, he has taken a somewhat harder line in the campaign and has not been able to overcome worries about his party on the issue.

The Hispanic vote could be decisive in Colorado, where the group makes up 12 percent of the electorate. Latino voters throughout the West feel empowered this year, particularly here and in New Mexico and Nevada, where their demographic growth and renewed political engagement have made them a force. The three states went for Bush four years ago but are now tossups or lean toward Obama. Most polls show Obama with a solid lead in Colorado.

In 2004, Bush’s appeal to Latinos helped him win Colorado despite Democrats’ besting Republicans for congressional and statewide offices. The Democratic winners included the Salazar bothers — U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar and U.S. Rep. John Salazar, moderate Democrats who are popular with Latino voters and could help drive support for Obama.

“When you have someone like Bush, who grew up in an environment where he really understood Latinos, it comes across in the way [he talked] to them. It’s an approach,” said Jorge Mursuli, president of Democracia USA, a nonpartisan voter group that registered 138,000 Hispanic voters, including a few thousand in Colorado. “He had a campaign that really understood how to reach the Latinos and how to be culturally competent. He scored big time. That’s not happening now.”

Floyd Ciruli, an independent pollster and political consultant based in Denver, said Obama’s use of strong Hispanic supporters could be a sufficient substitute for his lack of natural appeal because “a goodly number of them are rural conservatives or moderates, traditional in their religious practices, versus your more typical urban Latino who would share the values of the Democratic leadership.” Aside from the Salazars, former Denver mayor Federico Peña and Gov. Bill Richardson of neighboring New Mexico are campaigning for Obama in Colorado.

McCain has tried to reach out with Spanish-language television ads, such as one titled “Riesgo” that calls Obama a risk for small-business owners and employees, and through supporters such as Gilberto Velez, chairman of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference board, who in a news conference last week encouraged Hispanics to vote for McCain because of his stance on abortion, same-sex marriage and other social issues.

In meetings with national Hispanic advocacy groups, McCain has talked about his familiarity with their culture as a resident of the border state of Arizona and has played up his personal ties with Latinos who have served in the military. His campaign has tried to remind Hispanics that he helped craft the failed immigration overhaul that was popular with many in their community. And last week, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was interviewed on Univision, the country’s most popular Spanish-language TV network.

Still, the Republican is gaining no ground with Hispanics in polls.

Beyond the economy, many at the poker tables here attribute that to the bruising immigration debate in which Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo — who represents a suburban Denver district — was among the loudest proponents of deportation. Lydia DeLaRosa, a leader of the Latin-Anglo Alliance, says the immigration raids on a big meatpacking plant 200 miles away in Greeley still infuriate her.

Popularity: 14% [?]