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% [?]

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.”

Popularity: 14% [?]

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD,  The New York Times

Speaker Nancy Pelosi normally enjoys warm relations with members of the House’s black and Hispanic caucuses, but a large number of them revolted Monday against legislation, which she supported, to rescue the financial industry.

Class differences were laid bare by the vote. Several members of the two all-Democratic caucuses, who are now working among themselves and with the House leadership to put forward a compromise, characterized the defeated bill as one that would have provided assistance to the rich at the expense of middle- and lower-income voters. And it is to those voters that the lawmakers must answer.

Representative Xavier Becerra, whose district includes some of Los Angeles’s poorer precincts, said, “The last thing I need to do is go back home and tell people I voted for $700 billion, some of which will touch the same people that caused the problem, and I can’t guarantee taxpayers will recoup those costs.”

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, 40 percent of whose members are fellow Californians of Ms. Pelosi, voted 12 to 8 against the bailout, while the Congressional Black Caucus rejected it by 21 to 18. The overall vote was 228 to 205, meaning that a shift of 12 votes from nay to aye would have brought passage.

While two-thirds of House Republicans wound up opposing the bill, Ms. Pelosi, as promised, delivered votes from half the Democratic members (actually a bit more). But her inability to corral more votes from two often reliable blocs spoke to deep misgivings about the bill’s particulars, the notion among the members’ constituents that a vote in favor would mean alignment with Republicans to help Wall Street, and a degree of confusion and uncertainty about the depth of the financial crisis.

Mr. Becerra, Ms. Pelosi’s assistant speaker, defended her Tuesday, saying that while she had never pressured him, she had done all she could to gain support for the measure. He attributed its failure to a refusal by President Bush and House Republicans to include protections for people who had gone bankrupt or were losing their homes.

Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr. of Chicago put it more starkly.

“We need to bail out the country, not the country club,” Mr. Jackson said, speaking by phone Tuesday from Washington as he prepared to participate in a meeting intended to revive some version of the legislation.

Two years ago, expressing support for Ms. Pelosi’s nomination as speaker, Mr. Jackson invoked Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman and Jesus. But on Tuesday he said that despite the turmoil in the markets, he could not have sold the bill to his constituents.

“I would hope greater homeowner protections would not be seen as unreasonable,” he said, “since the foundation of the economy is homeownership, where the crisis began.”

Representative José E. Serrano of the Bronx, too, presented his position as one of looking after the little guy.

“I represent the poorest district in the nation, located in the richest city on earth, in walking distance of the wealthiest district, on the Upper East Side,” Mr. Serrano said. “People on Wall Street, without regulation of the financial services industry, they created a false economy based on inflated home values. The middle class and the poor didn’t reap any benefits from that. Whether or not we bail them out, we cannot put this on the backs of the poor and working class.”

Members of the caucuses who did support the bill agreed with the leadership that it was a difficult but necessary step at a time of predictions that the economy might crumble without it.

Representative Dennis Cardoza of California, a self-styled fiscal conservative whose Central Valley district has experienced some of the largest numbers of mortgage defaults, said voting for the bill “makes you want to vomit.” But he agreed that it was needed to avoid economic collapse.

“Not enough members understand the economics of both the situation and what is in the bill,” Mr. Cardoza said. “There are some who let ideological purity get in the way.”

Among those opposing the measure was the chairman of the Hispanic caucus, Representative Joe Baca, who represents a Los Angeles-area district. Mr. Baca made clear Tuesday that he would push hard to include in a compromise bill the creation of a new government agency, the Family Foreclosure Rescue Corporation, which would finance loans to people in foreclosure or serious default.

The idea, backed by several members of both caucuses who voted no on Monday, would allow families to refinance their mortgages through a government-administered loan with a set interest rate.

“Now we have the opportunity to submit our own proposal,” Mr. Baca said, “and make this better.”

Popularity: 10% [?]

By Rick Pearson |  Chicago Tribune correspondent
September 3, 2008

ST. PAUL — Gabriela Wyatt said she came to the United States from Mexico in 1992 because, with the advent of the North American Free Trade Agreement, her work would require her to learn English. She never went back.

Working in her family’s restaurant in the U.S., Wyatt fell in love but told the boss at her government office back in Mexico that she needed more time in the States. She married, earned her citizenship and now is a first-time delegate to the Republican National Convention from Aurora and the Illinois Latino outreach director for presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain.

Wyatt praises McCain for his effort—ultimately unsuccessful—to broker a deal on Immigration reform, a plan that called for border enforcement but also included a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, prompting protests from Republicans.

“The conversation became very extreme on both sides, and there was a man of steel standing in the middle trying to fight for it,” Wyatt said of the Arizona senator. “He was not worried about the political backlash. He was just trying to solve that issue.”

McCain, however, has since conceded to Republican voters that he should have first pushed a plan to secure the borders before considering whether to provide a path to citizenship to 12 million undocumented immigrants.

McCain’s evolution on the Immigration issue may be among the problems he faces in cultivating support from Latino voters, fast turning into a key voting bloc.

Not just Immigration voters
Heading into the nation’s presidential nominating conventions, Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois held a lead ranging from 27 to 43 percentage points over McCain in polls of Hispanics, who make up almost 10 percent of the nation’s voters and are expected to make up nearly one-third of the country’s population by 2050.

Those survey results are unusual for McCain, who typically enjoyed overwhelming Latino support in his Senate contests. They also fall far short of the roughly 40 percent Hispanic support President George W. Bush received in his 2004 re-election bid.

Some voting experts say the issue of Immigration is too narrow to focus on in measuring the Hispanic vote. Polls show Latino concerns echo those of voters at large—the economy, jobs, health care, education and crime.

“There’s often a misconception that Immigration is a top issue of concern,” said Adam Alonso, executive director of Nuestra America, a non-partisan group pushing voter registration.

“Ultimately, Latino voters will sit back in the way that all voters will —assess the campaigns, assess the policy stances and make the judgment on who they feel most represents their values and outlook of how America should be the next four years,” Alonso said.

Gary Segura, a professor of political science at Stanford University who specializes in Latino voting issues, acknowledges that polling shows Hispanic concerns mirror the nation’s at large.

But Segura said his research shows that the Immigration issue and GOP efforts to push a largely conservative social message to Latinos put at risk any gains made during Bush’s campaigns.

Clinton voters head to Obama
Segura likens Republican calls for a crackdown on illegal Immigration to the “late ’80s and early ’90s conservative anti-welfare rhetoric that was a socially acceptable way to expressing anti-black sentiment.”

Both Obama and McCain have reached out to Hispanics. The 72-year-old McCain noted his recent endorsement by singer Daddy Yankee, a star of reggaeton, a form of music that borrows from reggae, rap and other styles and that is popular among Latin American youth.

But a recent survey by the Pew Hispanic Center found that more than three-quarters of Latinos who backed Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race now support Obama. McCain picked up only 8 percent of her voters.

But Wyatt, the first-time delegate, is undeterred in supporting McCain, again citing the Immigration issue.

“He stood strong trying to solve it,” she said. “Not that many people were there. Sen. Barack Obama was not there, I can tell you.”

Popularity: 16% [?]

On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, Sen. Hillary Clinton came to Fresno on Sunday to thank the United Farm Workers for supporting her campaign for president and ask that they now turn that support toward electing presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Speaking to a crowd of about 600 people at the union’s constitutional convention in downtown Fresno, the New York Democrat also pledged to continue pressing for immigration reform in Congress, including a provision that would give more than a million undocumented workers in the country a path toward citizenship.

“I stood up for you because I know America can do better,” Clinton told members of the union that endorsed her in February’s California Democratic presidential primary. She said the union’s work has helped make visible the plight of some of the country’s lowest-paid workers.

The last time Clinton made a campaign stop in Fresno, last October, she was stumping for her own candidacy for president.

On Sunday, speaking before a crowd that cheered for her as they held up “Obama ‘08″ placards, Clinton praised the man to whom she conceded her party’s nomination in June as a politician who would also fight for the union’s causes.

“I’ve seen his passion and determination, his grit and grace, and I know that he has lived the American dream,” she said. Clinton added that an Obama presidency would lead to stronger union rights, immigration reform, an increased minimum wage and “a health-care system that takes care of everyone.”

The speech, coming the day before the start of the Democratic National Convention, was free of any animosity on Clinton’s part for losing her presidential bid to Obama, D-Ill.

That extended to Clinton’s praise of Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who was chosen by Obama last week as his vice-presidential running mate. She called Biden an experienced politician who has “been on the front lines for social and economic justice.”

Many audience members wore Obama stickers or carried his campaign signs. Still, they praised Clinton for her support of farmworker causes and for recognizing the difficulties they face in their jobs.

“She said things we think are true about the work in the fields,” said Felipe Gonzales, 45, a union delegate from the Monterey County community of Greenfield, Calif..

But Clinton supporter Carlton Lockett, 72, said he wished Clinton could have joined Obama as his vice-presidential pick.

“I’ve been a Hillary supporter for a long time,” said Lockett, a bar owner who sat in on Sunday’s speech. “But I think we have a good man in Barack Obama.”

Clinton also pledged to keep pressing for a so-called “AgJOBS” bill aimed at giving more than a million undocumented workers a way to achieve legal status and possibly citizenship.

Eight years ago, the UFW joined with farmers groups to propose such a guest-worker program. But in the past two years, two different versions of the bill have failed in Congress.

A small group of protesters held banners outside the Fresno Convention Center on Sunday to protest the UFW’s support of a guest-worker program.

“We disagree with any organization that tries to promote guest workers when we have enough people here we need to help,” said protester Luis Magana.

Erik Nicholson, UFW international director, said the union’s support for a guest-worker program was “consistent with our mission” of helping farmworkers.

“We have a global labor system,” he said. “We’ve recognized it’s inadequate for us to wait for these workers to show up in the United States.”

Popularity: 10% [?]

Democrats will make immigration reform a prominent discussion at their convention in Denver, hoping to capitalize on anger that many Hispanic voters feel toward GOP support of strict curbs on immigration.

Democrats believe that Hispanic voters will play a pivotal role in battleground states such as Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico, which President Bush won in 2004 in part because of a stronger-than-expected performance among Hispanic voters.

“McCain is in a much weaker position with Hispanics,” said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, the political action arm of the New Democrat movement, in reference to Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the expected Republican nominee.

“The Southwestern states and Florida are up for grabs because of erosion of Republican brand in the Latino community,” said Rosenberg. “That’s driven by the immigration debate. The way Republicans handled the immigration debate was one of the most extraordinary political mistakes a party has made in recent times.

“The way Hispanics have been alienated because of immigration has made it much more difficult for McCain to win the election,” Rosenberg added.

Many Hispanic and immigrant advocacy groups supported immigration reform legislation that Democrats, led by Sen. Ted Kennedy (Mass.), pushed in the 109th Congress. Conservative Republicans used the power of the filibuster to defeat the bipartisan proposal, which would have created a path to citizenship for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

McCain worked with Kennedy to craft the proposal but later backed away from it during the Republican presidential primary when his opponents attacked him for supporting the measure, which many conservative activists opposed.

Democrats will attempt to send a clear message of their support for creating a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants at their convention in Denver.

The NDN and prominent Democrats including Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Judiciary subcommittee with primary oversight of immigration, will hold a forum on Monday in Denver entitled “Immigration Reform and the Next Administration.” Lofgren is expected to play an important role in crafting any immigration reform proposals Congress may take up next year.

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Popularity: 9% [?]

U.S. Hispanic activists laid out plans on Friday to register 2 million new Latino voters to boost the clout of the United States’ fastest-growing voter bloc in the November presidential election.

Organizers representing more than 100 grass-roots Hispanic organizations from a dozen states met in Los Angeles to fine-tune a drive to get Latinos to sign up and vote in the November 4 election.

Hispanics account for about 9 percent of the U.S. electorate and are the nation’s fastest growing minority group. They could be a critical swing voting bloc in battleground states like Florida and those in the Southwest.

Organizers of the initiative say activists will seek to register voters through community-based drives, focused on battleground states such as Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico that they say have been overlooked by both Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.

“The candidates have articulated generally well on the issues that relate to Latinos, but have insufficiently invested in our community in terms of campaign operations on the ground in those battleground sates,” said Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican-American Political Association.

In recent weeks both McCain and Obama have addressed several national Hispanic organizations in their hunt for votes, stressing economic and educational proposals they said would help Latinos as well as reviving plans for a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws.

In 2004, President George W. Bush won about 40 percent of the Hispanic vote — a Republican record — in defeating Democrat John Kerry. But opinion polls show Republican standing among Latinos has since been hurt by a shrill debate over immigration reform.

Last year, Republican lawmakers killed a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would have offered many of the estimated 12 million, mostly Hispanic illegal immigrants, a path to citizenship, along with tighter enforcement. It had been backed by both McCain and Obama.

The drive to encourage Latinos to vote began in earnest last year after hundreds of thousands of Hispanics marched through the streets of many U.S. cities calling for an overhaul of immigration laws.

Popularity: 19% [?]

When Sen. John McCain speaks to the nation’s largest Hispanic rights group this weekend, he will face an audience increasingly confused about his immigration position and looking for a declaration that he remains the same champion with whom they have worked for two decades.

“He needs to demonstrate that he still is the John McCain that we think we know,” said Cecilia Munoz, a vice president at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), which opens its annual convention Friday in San Diego.

Associated Press Sen. John McCain, seen Thursday campaigning in Belleville, Mich., will head to San Diego this weekend to address the National Council of La Raza, where he is under pressure to prove his allegiance to Hispanics.

She said the senator from Arizona is well-known and respected for his military service and for his long relationship with Hispanic groups nationally and in his home state, but now is “also working to attract the votes of the side of his party that doesn’t like us. … There’s a pretty anti-Latino tone to that conversation, and it’s not clear to me how you appeal to that side of the party and to the Latino vote at the same time.”

“A grand slam for John McCain at NCLR’s conference would be to stand up and say, ‘I know there’s people saying offensive stuff and I reject it,’” Ms. Munoz said in an interview previewing the convention. “‘There’s no place for that, in my party or in the political process.’”

The Republican presidential candidate and his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, will both address NCLR. They spoke to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in June and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) earlier this week.

Ms. Munoz said Mr. Obama’s challenge is different from Mr. McCain’s: “People don’t know him as well as they knew [former presidential rival Sen. Hillary Rodham] Clinton or Senator McCain. I think they need to know his heart and the depth of his commitment on the issues we care about.”

Mr. McCain’s speech Sunday and Mr. Obama’s Monday will show that the candidates recognize the immense political power of Hispanic voters this year. Seeking to capitalize on that potential, NCLR’s all-day citizenship drive is Saturday, the first full day of the convention.

The conference also will have a forum on health care, with policy advisers from both the Obama and McCain campaigns, and a workshop connecting homeowners with lenders to help stave off foreclosures.

“The big message is political empowerment,” Ms. Munoz said, predicting that Hispanic turnout in the November election would reach a record 10 million and could go as high as 12 million as voters become energized over immigration and other issues. “This is a banner year across the community, in that both candidates are really going to be courting the Latino vote.”

NCLR also has intensified efforts to fight what the group’s leaders see as an anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic climate, including joining with other advocacy groups to encourage television networks to temper talk-show rhetoric.

Popularity: 6% [?]