Silverio “Silver” Salazar has been an active Democrat for decades, just like his cousins, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar and U.S. Rep. John Salazar.
But for the 2008 presidential election, Silver Salazar is squarely behind John McCain.
Silver Salazar, who had served as a Pueblo precinct leader for 20 years, was a Hillary Clinton backer. So when Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination, he began to research McCain and liked what he read.
He chose McCain because of his experience and readiness to take office.
Now, Silver Salazar is working to convince Democrats and Hispanics to support the GOP nominee.
“I’m making history for myself,” said the 59-year-old retired steel company operations manager. “This is the first I’ll vote for a Republican president - or work for one.”
Silver Salazar has been publicly supporting McCain since early summer. He’s done national media interviews and attended campaign visits across Colorado. On Thursday, he spoke at a news conference in Pueblo with other Hispanics supporting McCain.
About a dozen Hispanic McCain backers also held a press conference in Denver.
Hispanics across Colorado and the U.S. typically vote Democratic. But President Bush took an estimated 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, up from 34 percent in 2000.
A recent Rocky Mountain News/CBS4 News poll of Colorado voters found that 57 percent of Hispanics support Obama and 36 percent back McCain. The poll of 500 registered voters was taken Aug. 11 through 13 by Public Opinion Strategies and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.38 percentage points.
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