By Kelly Brewington, Baltimore Sun

Hugo Lam sees his story in Barack Obama’s.

Certainly, there are differences. Lam was raised in Nicaragua by hardworking parents who inspired him to seek a better life in the United States. Obama is a native son of Hawaii and spent time in Indonesia; he was born to a black goat-herding father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas.

But Obama’s meteoric rise from humble beginnings to the nation’s highest office resonates, Lam said, as the ultimate American success story - proof that while the streets might not be paved with gold, they still can lead to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

“I think for every Latino I speak with, his story is our story,” said Lam, 39. “He comes from a poor family, a mixed family, and struggled as a teenager and found his way. He made himself succeed, and that is the American dream. … He embodies our dream of America.”

While the significance of Obama’s victory to African-Americans is enormous, to other minorities and to young people, Obama represents a validation of their America.

The president-elect embodies a diverse nation, in which people of color will be the majority by 2042, according to census projections.

As voters of all backgrounds commemorate his barrier-shattering accomplishment, they wonder whether the country will reconsider old divisions, revise expectations and become more inclusive for them, too.

For Lam, director of Baltimore’s Park Conservation and Community Outreach office who came to the United States in 2000 for a master’s in forest science, it is perhaps a coming of age for a nation that elected 43 straight white presidents.

“Latino immigrants have had very few iconic figures to look up to when we got here,” he said. When he cast a ballot for Obama last week, he did so because he found a role model.

“What is really interesting is how many different demographic groups he represents, how many people can see themselves in Barack Obama,” said Bryn Upton, an assistant professor of history at McDaniel College. “There are statistically a lot of white people who can see their hopes and dreams in him, as much as black people who can.”

Upton wonders whether the historic moment will produce an “Obama effect” - a demonstrable improvement in race relations. “We spend a great deal of time emphasizing firsts,” he said, “but they have less meaning without seconds and thirds.”

For now, Upton predicts that most observers will revel in the historic moment. That’s what he’s doing. Like Obama, Upton is the child of a white parent and a black parent. They married in Indiana in 1967, just months before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state bans on interracial marriage. Obama’s win validates his family’s experience.

“We are excited about this,” he said. “There was a sense that as of 11 o’clock [election] night, we count.”

For people of color, immigrants and for many women, the promise of the American dream rang hollow until now, he said.

“The promise of America that is laid out in the canon of political documents, with each new generation, those promises touch more people,” he said. “Even though the legal framework was there, this is the first clear manifestation that this is ours too. The symbolic importance of that cannot be overestimated.”

Emily Hoppe, who is white, said that triumph was meaningful to her too.

“I always felt like anybody interested in African-American studies or women’s studies was seen as on the fringe,” said Hoppe, a 21-year-old senior at Johns Hopkins University. “But suddenly we are part of the mainstream. Now, I feel like if a white girl wants to read a biography of a black man, that is not seen as different or strange.”

Hoppe’s boyfriend worked as an Obama field organizer in rural Michigan and Indiana, where he met white voters who were hostile about the idea of voting for a black candidate. While frustrating, such remarks help people tackle the taboo topic of race, Hoppe said.

“There are pundits who want to deny the idea that racism still exists,” she said. “To say Barack Obama’s presidency means we don’t have racism would be false and not helpful to this discussion. I think that having race be part of our national discussion is important.”

“That Obama’s victory would not have been possible without white voters is itself a challenge to perceptions,” said Amar Dixit, 21, a senior at Hopkins. “A lot of people said he couldn’t win in Western Pennsylvania or Ohio because voters were racist. But he did. I think that’s monumental in itself.”

Dixit, the son of Indian immigrant parents, said for first-generation immigrants, Obama shows that anything is possible. “Really, who ever thought that Barack Hussein Obama could be president?” he said.

But Dixit said he fears that the huge expectations of an Obama presidency might be too great a burden, particularly with regard to foreign policy, the most important issue to Dixit.

“He talked a lot about what he was going to do, but does he have the guts to do what he needs to do?” Dixit said.

The election is also a validation for young people, Hoppe said, a group that experts assumed was apathetic about politics.

“It really felt like the first time in my life where I could be idealistic - even if it was just for a day,” she said. “My generation has grown up with so much irony and so much cynicism.”

Brothers Zishan and Salman Mohammed said they felt that energy when students erupted into spontaneous celebration on Baltimore’s 33rd Street, shortly after the election returns came in.

“I had no idea who was jumping on top of me, I was holding hands with students I never met before,” said Salman, a 22-year-old senior from Plano, Texas, who was born in Pakistan. “It didn’t matter that they were McCain supporters or Ron Paul supporters, they were excited that America was changing. And they were a part of it.”

Zishan, a 23-year-old graduate student in biotechnology at Hopkins, said he thinks Obama can improve America’s image abroad. Foreign nations don’t hate America, he said, they’re just frustrated with it.

“They want to be like America,” he said. “They just are just wondering how long will it take to have the democracy that America has. They have a lot of respect for Obama.”

As the nation’s diversity increases, the ethnic and racial groups that backed Obama could produce long-term electoral success for Democrats. The Republican Party made gains among Hispanic voters with George W. Bush on the ticket, but those have eroded. Republican efforts to attract blacks have largely fizzled. The GOP is entering a period of regrouping, figuring out how to attract members of ethnic groups that seem to prefer Democrats.

Lam, the Nicaragua native, scoffs at the pundits who questioned if Latino voters could vote for a black man. After Hillary Clinton enjoyed huge Latino support in the primaries, they voted for Obama over John McCain at a margin of nearly 2 to 1, according to an analysis of exit polls by the Pew Hispanic Center.

“He crossed over, and that is essential,” he said. “It is the maximum expression of democracy in this country. You had white voters, Hispanics, Asians, blacks, it was voters across the board that made this happen. It was a mixture. It had to be a mixture.”

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: 19% [?]

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: 18% [?]

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: 28% [?]

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Some nine million US Hispanics are eligible to vote in the November 4 presidential election and both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are pulling out all the stops to gain their support.

Both campaigns have tried to forge a closer relationship with the country’s largest minority group, especially in the key swing states of Florida, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico — places were the outcome could be determined.

Nationally, Latino support for the Republicans reached some 44 percent when President George W. Bush ran for re-election in 2004, when some 7.6 million Hispanics were eligible to vote.

Today only 23 percent of Hispanics support McCain, while two-thirds support Obama, according to a recent Pew Hispanic Center study.

Party loyalty in the swing states however is not always clear.

“There are many Latino voters in these states,” Jorge Mursulli, director of the advocacy group Democracia USA, told AFP. “What’s more, one cannot firmly place these states in either the Republican or Democratic column.”

Mursulli, who leads one of the largest voter registration drives in the country, said the Hispanic population has grown significantly over the past years in those four states.

In Florida, where both campaigns are spending heavily, polls show that Hispanic voters “will be very divided,” Mursulli said.

Attitudes towards Cuba are expected to swing some voters.

Jorge Mas, the head of the fiercely anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) wrote a recent Washington Post opinion piece in which he described current US policy towards Cuba as “at best static and at worst counterproductive.”

Obama’s “forward-looking and proactive approach toward empowering the Cuban people is more in line” with proposals that he outlined “than John McCain’s vow to continue the Bush administration’s policy.”

But like other voters, Hispanics are primarily concerned about the country’s troubled economy, health care and education.

“That does not mean that people are no longer concerned about the war in Iraq,” Mursulli said. “The issue of the war remains very high on the list of Latino priorities.”

Immigration, however, “is the issue that sets Hispanics apart from the rest of the population,” Mursulli said.

Immigration was debated during the primaries, but is so controversial it has been largely ignored by both candidates during the general election campaign.

Proposals to introduce immigration reform, both times supported by McCain, were defeated in the US Congress in 2006 and 2007 in the face of opposition from conservative Republicans.

Since the reform proposal failed, polls show Hispanics increasingly supporting the Democrats. The move coincides with an increase in high-profile roundups of undocumented workers, with thousands arrested by federal authorities since December 2006.

Obama has even recorded three ads in Spanish, the first presidential candidate to do so, said a top Obama aide, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, on Monday.

The 30-second long spots are being broadcast in the four swing states as well as the battleground state of Virginia.

“I ask your vote not just for me and for the Democrats, but to keep alive this (American) dream for you and your children,” Obama says in one spot.

Both candidates have also promised closer ties with Latin America — a region largely forgotten by the Bush administration — but may be hamstrung by the global financial crisis, experts said.

Latin America briefly surfaced in the October 15 debate, in which the McCain chastised Obama for not having traveled south of the border, and for opposing the free trade agreement with Colombia.

Obama, along with other Democrats in the US Congress, opposed the FTA with Colombia because they said they wanted more protections and rights for Colombian workers in the agreement.

Obama also has said that he wants to renegotiate portions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) — signed in 1993, during the Democratic presidency of Bill Clinton — because he wants Mexico to adhere to higher labor and environmental standards.

The next president “should avoid expectations that cannot be fulfilled” concerning closer US interest in Latin America, said Peter DeShazo, who heads the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank.

Peter Hakim, who heads the Inter-American Dialogue think-tank, believes that reviving the sputtering US economy is essential for better ties south of the border. “Getting our economy back in order is terribly important for Latin America,” he said.

Popularity: 25% [?]

By Tim Gaynor

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Mexican-American laborer Orlando Arenas says he will vote for Barack Obama on November 4 because the Democrat’s story touches his sense of the American Dream.

Gabriella Friddle, a Dallas-based graphics designer from Peru who has lived in America for 25 years and is now a citizen, said she plans to vote for Obama because she likes him.

“I like him very much. I think he’s intelligent and well-educated. And I think he will be good for the country. He is very straightforward and I think he will lead us out of this economic crisis right now,” she said.

When Obama emerged through the Democratic primary process earlier this year, few U.S. Hispanics knew who he was, and those who did, tended to support his principal rival for the party’s presidential nomination, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

But as the campaign for the U.S. presidential election on November 4. draws into its final phase, U.S. Latinos are rallying to the Democratic ticket and appear to be warming to the Illinois senator to whom they once gave the cold shoulder.

Hispanics make up 15 percent of the U.S. population and 9 percent of the electorate. A Pew Hispanic Center poll in July found that two thirds of Latino voters supported Obama over his Republican rival John McCain — a greater edge than at any time in the past decade.

Obama also had strong approval of between 63 percent and 55 percent in the key battleground states of Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, while he was tied with McCain in Florida, according to a study by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials released last week.

Earlier this year, many pundits thought Obama faced an uphill task capturing Hispanics’ support for Clinton — whose ties to Latinos date back her husband President Bill Clinton’s eight years in office. Some thought Obama faced further resistance from the bloc as an African-American candidate.

“The reality was that very few Hispanics knew who he was when he started out,” said Arturo Vargas, the executive-director of NALEO’s educational fund.

GETTING TO LIKE OBAMA

In 2004, President George W. Bush won about 40 percent of the Hispanic vote — a Republican record — when he beat Democrat John Kerry. Since then opinion polls showed Republican standing among Latinos had been hurt by an acrimonious national debate on immigration reform.

In his campaign, McCain has pitched to the conservative values, patriotism and entrepreneurial flair of many Hispanics. The Arizona senator still enjoys loyal support among a dwindling minority nationally, and remains in a statistical dead heat with Obama in Florida, with 38 points and 35 points respectively, NALEO found.

Polls and voters alike say Obama’s lead over McCain has built in recent months as concern over the Republican administration’s handling of the economy and the Iraq war have mounted, while misgivings over GOP hard-liner’ support for a crackdown on illegal immigration have lingered.

A survey put out on Thursday of Latino Protestants, 63 percent of whom voted for Bush in 2004, showed a sharp about face. With three weeks to go to election day, a slim majority of 50.4 percent of those questioned in the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference study said they now favored Obama to 33.6 percent for McCain.

Republican unpopularity aside, analysts say Obama has also succeeded in bonding with Hispanics in his own right, beginning with an appearance he made on the popular syndicated Spanish language radio “Piolin Por la Manana” last year, and his subsequent use of the old Latino workers’ chant of “si se puede!” or “yes you can!” in appearances.

“It appeals to them because it’s been used again and again with the farm workers, with other labor movements here in the United States among Latinos,” said Ricardo Ramirez, an assistant professor of political science, American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California,

While the Obama campaign has not played up his personal history as the son of a Kenyan father and a U.S. mother, the back story has nevertheless also found a persuasive resonance with second-generation Hispanics.

“His parents probably had the same aspirations that my parents came here for, and that’s the American Dream, a good education, a good job and finding a good home,” said Orlando Arenas, 27, explaining his affinity with Obama as he stood on a busy corner in downtown Phoenix.

“I’m an independent, but I am going to vote for him this time.”

Popularity: 28% [?]

By Jeremy Pelzer,  PolitickerCO.com

A new survey from a Democratic polling firm released Saturday night shows Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Mark Udall both have a 10-point lead in Colorado.

The survey, taken by Public Policy Polling, has Obama leading Republican opponent John McCain 52 percent to 42 percent. Udall leads Republican U.S. Senate nominee Bob Schaffer 49 percent to 39 percent in the poll.

PPP said Obama’s lead was due in large part to increasing Hispanic support in Colorado for the U.S. Senator from Illinois. The poll found 71 percent of Colorado Hispanics surveyed favored Obama; just 21 percent of Hispanics polled favored McCain.

PPP’s last survey in Colorado, released Sept. 23, showed Obama with a 57-36 lead among Hispanic voters.

Just 6 percent of those polled were undecided about the presidential race.

The survey was taken Oct. 8-10 among 1,331 likely voters. The poll’s margin of error is +/- 2.7 percent.

Popularity: 30% [?]

By Ed O’Keefe, Wahington Post
The Obama campaign launched new Spanish-language advertising today, shifting from immigration, its recent topic of choice, to health care and taxes, and intensifying its bid to win Latino voters in the South, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic.

A new television ad will air in the “big four” Latino states of Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Florida. The new radio spot will air in those states and also, in a first for an Obama Spanish radio commercial, in Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — a significant expansion of the campaign’s Latino voter strategy following months of outreach in those states.

“On taxes, who’s on your side?” asks the “Impeustos” TV ad. “John McCain pledges hundreds of billions in corporate tax breaks. Billions for oil companies. But for 100 million households — nothing. And McCain’s health plan will tax benefits for the first time ever. Barack Obama. No tax hikes on any families earning less than a quarter million dollars.”

The radio spot asserts: “The tax credit McCain promises will go straight to the pockets of insurance companies. These are the facts about his plan that John McCain and the Republicans want to hide from the public. But, with Barack Obama, taxes will be cut for 95 percent of the county’s working families. Period. Not one penny more of taxes for any family earning less than a quarter million dollars.”

The radio ad will air in Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The campaign has aired similar health care and tax ads in English recently, arguing that McCain’s tax and health care plans will not benefit middle class families.

While the importance of the Latino vote is obvious in Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico, Latinos have been less of an electoral force in Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“In the home stretch, as things get tighter in places like Indiana, the Hispanic community will play a key role and could actually tip the election if the race is decided by a couple of percentage points,” explained Obama campaign spokesman Federico de Jesus. “While they don’t have the large percentage like Nevada or Colorado, they could help tip the results in our favor.”

That’s why the Obama campaign and DNC plan to spend at least $20 million on Latino voter recruitment, registration, staffing and advertising through Election Day. The Obama campaign hired veteran Latino activists to work in New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Florida and has held several bilingual or Spanish-only Camp Obama training sessions for staffers and volunteers. The decision to start advertising beyond the “big four” demonstrates that registration and recruitment efforts have worked and the campaign feels advertising could help seal the deal, said de Jesus.

“I’ve got any resource and every resource I’ve needed to get the job done,” said Obama Latino vote director Temo Figueroa, whose job it is to attract the small but potentially significant pockets of Latino voters in places like Gary, Indiana, Indianapolis and Milwaukee. Figueroa has helped organize several Latino-themed rallies with Latino politicians and celebrities in non-”big four” states: Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) hosted a Latino voter event in Wisconsin, Rosie Perez went to Ohio and George Lopez hosted an event in Northern Virginia last Saturday.

Up until now, Spanish-language advertising by the Obama and McCain campaigns has centered on which candidate has an immigration record more favorable to Latino voters.

The Obama campaign expects to keeps its focus on the economy going forward.

Popularity: 19% [?]

By Graciela Berger Wegsman, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Naomi Silie rose early Saturday to make it to a car rental company on W. 37th St., where she and 30 other Barack Obama campaign volunteers hopped in eight cars and headed to Allentown, Pa.

“I really believe that Barack Obama has to be our next President,” says Silie, a 31-year-old Dominican-American attorney, who lives in the northeast Bronx.

“He is a new and different voice, one that has captured the hearts of so many because we can actually believe that he will at least try to fulfill his promises.”

This was her second trip to Allentown, where the Obama camp was furiously registering people to vote by last Monday’s deadline.

She plans to return for four days before the elections.

“[We] went door to door to get people registered to vote, and if registered, to remind them to vote on Election Day,” says Silie.

With less than a month remaining until the elections, both the Democratic and Republican campaigns are concentrating their resources in crucial swing states.

Every Saturday for the last month, Annelisa Gadea, the director of the volunteer group New York Latinos for Obama, has been heading an all-day trip to the battleground state closest to New York. They depart before 10 a.m. and return by 8 p.m.

At least a quarter of Allentown’s population of about 100,000 is Hispanic, according to the 2000 census.

“Allentown is a blue collar area with low income. The steel factories have closed. People don’t feel their vote counts.

So we try to convince them to register,” says the Peruvian Gadea, 32, who lives in Manhattan. “It has been a wonderful experience.”

The Republican camp has also been organizing Latino events, “but only with few days advance planning,” says Peter Feldman, communications director of the New York State McCain campaign.

For example, he said, there was a rally announcing the campaign’s NY-NJ Latino Coalition on Sept. 12 at LQ Nightclub in midtown and a debate-watching party last Thursday.

Hessy Fernández, the director of the Special Media Team of the McCain campaign in Washington, said it is doing Latino outreach through a targeted Web page, phone banks and TV and radio ads, both in English and Spanish.

“McCain doesn’t need any introduction the way Obama does,” says the Cuban-born, Miami-raised Fernández. “John McCain got more than 70% of the Latino vote in Arizona when he was reelected as a senator.”

The Latinos for Obama camp says it is having a comedy night fund-raiser on Oct. 29 at the Gotham Comedy Club in Chelsea and a Day of the Dead celebration on Nov. 1 at a private home in Manhattan.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Dan Glaister in Las Vegas, New Mexico
The Guardian

Barack Obama’s appeal was unusually direct. “I want you to start voting your numbers,” the Democratic presidential candidate urged the crowd of 10,000 gathered in the New Mexican town of Española. “Start flexing your muscles.”

Obama’s entreaties reflect a cause for optimism and concern in the Democratic camp in New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada. All are targets for Obama, and all are states in which a large Hispanic population could make the difference. But turnout is the key. If the Democrats in New Mexico fail to get people out to vote, the party could see a repetition of recent history.

In 2000 New Mexico voted for Al Gore by the tightest of margins: 366 votes. In 2004, George Bush and Karl Rove engineered a 6,000-vote Republican win. This time, polls show Obama with an 8-point lead over his Republican rival.

Sitting in the Spic & Span Bakery, a breakfast institution in the northern New Mexican Democratic stronghold of Las Vegas, local party chairman Martin Suazo has a theory. “The reason we lost New Mexico in 2004 is because the Republicans had a better strategy,” he says. “They ignored strong Democratic counties. While we were getting 63% turnout among registered Democrats, they were in the 70s. We spent a lot of time trying to win over voters we didn’t have. We ended up not motivating our voters. They outworked us.”

The lessons have been learned. The Obama campaign has spent $20m (£10m) reaching out to Hispanic voters nationally, and has flooded states such as New Mexico with Spanish-language TV and radio ads. This time, as Obama let his crowd know, the stress is on getting the Democrats to the polls.

At the Obama campaign office in the picturesque town plaza in Las Vegas, volunteers drift in and out, while voters call in to collect yard signs.

“Our goal is to knock on 2,000 doors,” urges a sign. On one wall there is a list of 40 canvassers signed up for knocking on doors. “Typically if this state swings towards a Republican state, it’s because we didn’t get out our vote,” says estate agent and volunteer Yvette Arellanes.

But there are problems for the youthful Team Obama, installed in the town since the summer. The town of 14,000 and the surrounding San Miguel county voted heavily for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic caucus. “There were a lot of hurt feelings,” says Suazo.

Those feelings were not helped by the tactics of Team Obama, a clash of cultures that Suazo characterises as traditionalists versus progressives. The traditionalists would hold barbeques, hand out stickers and rely on speeches, the progressives prefer text messages, emails and debate watch parties.

The new approach has alienated many older, more traditional Hispanic Democrats, the ones who can normally be relied on to vote. “You’ve got families in the north who have been here since before this was a state,” says Gabriel Sanchez, of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. “There is a patron-type system there, with a handful of old-style political families wielding power. Hispanics have had a lot of political representation. It’s not a question of getting a place at the table. They’ve had that.”

During the primary campaign, as Hispanics overwhelmingly voted for Clinton, many questioned whether they would be ready to elect an African-American president. The question still holds. A local Republican chairman in northern New Mexico was forced to resign last month after telling a reporter from the BBC that: “Hispanics came here as conquerors. African-Americans came here as slaves. Hispanics consider themselves above blacks. They won’t vote for a black president.”

The remarks caused a storm, with Hispanic leaders rushing to deny the charge. “The $1m question is whether it is race or the economy that is motivating Democratic Hispanics,” says Sanchez. “I would be shocked if race was the deciding factor, but you never know.”

Immigration is not a live issue for Hispanic voters in northern New Mexico. Ask them about immigration and they invariably pause before noting that they didn’t migrate anywhere: the US border migrated south.

Polling shows Hispanic voters across the nation preoccupied with the same list of priorities as white voters: the economy, healthcare, education. Immigration tends to rank around seventh place.

Nevertheless, the Republican party’s disastrous handling of immigration reform may have served to alienate many voters, who considered that they were being criminalised for being Hispanic.

And the perceived abandonment by John McCain of the moderate immigration reform he had sponsored as he sought his party’s nomination has rankled with many Hispanics voters.

“There’s been a real rebellion against the Republican party [on the issue],” says Simon Rosenberg, director of NDN, a liberal thinktank that focuses on Latino issues. “They’ve been vilified in the media for three years and they don’t like it. McCain abdicated his position so instead of being seen as a champion he’s a betrayer. It’s been a sea change.”

But Hispanic Republicans do exist in Las Vegas. In the Hillcrest restaurant, Carlos Lovato stands out in the all-male clientele with his “Dads for McCain” cap. “The Hispanic people are conservative,” he says. “John McCain’s a solid guy. It’s better to have your neighbour” - McCain represents neighbouring Arizona - “your friend, as the president.”

Obama has the state’s governor, Bill Richardson, the only Hispanic governor in the nation, forcefully backing him.

But something more is needed, says Suazo. “The best way to get to the Hispanic Democratic voter is for them to be able to feel, hear, touch and see Obama,” says Suazo. “The Hispanic voter is a very emotional voter.”

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