I just got off a media conference call with Obama Campaign National Director of Latino Vote Temo Figueroa, as well as members of the Washington Latino Vote Project and the newly announced Latinos for Obama Steering Committee, where we were promised an unprecedented Latino outreach program in Washington state between now and the election.
“This election will be determined by the Latino vote,” Figueroa told the participants, predicting that a handful of swing states will be decided by a few thousand votes. If those states are New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona, I’m guessing Figueroa is exactly right, potentially providing Obama a mountain state swing that could rewrite the electoral map.
As for Washington state, I’m guessing we’re not quite as big a priority, even with the recent SurveyUSA poll showing the presidential race here narrowing to within four points… which is shame because a strong Latino turnout would benefit Democrats up and down the ticket. So far the Obama campaign has been absent from our airwaves, and I haven’t heard any hint of a TV buy, Latino or otherwise, hitting WA markets anytime soon.
That said, the state Dems’ Latino outreach program is “unprecedented,” consisting of a statewide director, four paid field operatives, plus a Latinos for Obama committee populated with an impressive array of elected officials and other civic leaders.
According to Figueroa, Latinos comprise about 4.1 percent of Washington’s eligible voters (and growing), but as many as 102,000 of these eligible Latinos remain unregistered. If the Dems can leverage the Obama campaign to dramatically increase both registration and turnout, it won’t just cushion the margin at the top of the ticket and generate longer coattails further down, it could result in a substantial electoral shift for years to come, especially in areas of the state that haven’t been kind to Democrats in recent elections.
We’ll see.
He’s a little late in the game to be going after Hispanic votes. This the most natural of constituencies for Democrats, with the bigoted xenophobic tendencies of Republicans being their ticket to dinosaur status in the years to come if they keep up the shrill, mean, and hateful rhetoric about those darn brown people who had the audacity to cross into the US withoug proper documents. I’m frankly astonished that Obama hasn’t been given intensive, crash courses in Spanish and then giving speaches in Spanish to Latino audiences at least twice a week. The candidate that does this in the years to come will kick the shit out of his/her opponent.
Itch @1,
Actually, he’s not late in the game; he got wide support from Latinos during the primaries, and long ago committed $20 million toward Latino outreach. And their field operations have been on the ground here for months.
100k “eligible” voters remain unregistered? What exactly does that mean? How many of those are actual citizens, as opposed to illegals? Anyone know?
I’m curious, since on the one hand, as a Libertarian, I believe in open borders. On the other, however, I’m concerned that illegals that come here to work but have no intention of staying, have no incentive to vote in a responsible manner. If you’re going to leave anyway, then way not “game the system” and extract what you can, before moving on? If that is indeed the case, with a large percentage of these folks, how can that be good for our society, long-term?
Just a thought… To be honest, I have no idea if this kind of abuse is prevalent, or not. But I do think it’s something to consider…
Since this article came out we’re telling all
hispanics to not vote because Immigration
officials will be there checking papers.
Waiting..
I’d like to read an analysis from one of you political brains on where you think Obama’s at right now, and what, if anything, he needs to do differently from this point on to win. If you were his advisor, what would you tell him to do?
3 – What are you talking about? AFAIK, it’s illegal for a non-citizen to vote.
No one is advocating anything illegal.
MOVIN ON WA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thursday night, Move On is meeting at 7 at the combined campaign headquarters on Mercer to discuss independent activities to support Obama.
This is a real chance for us local yokals to do some good!
SJ will be there! Palindrones are NOT invited.
Don’t worry about Washington. Go south about a thousand miles and concentrate your attention in Texas for shitsake. I am pretty sure McCain is not counting on the Hispanics in Utah to come through for him.
Hey Goldy, every day me and Dutch and Mr. Cynical and the other rghtwingers come onto this blog and ridicule you asnd your beliefs and turn these threads into a sewer and along comes a sockpuppet to make fun of us and you delete all his posts. But our posts criticizing you are allowed to remain. You FUCKING LIBERALS ARE FUCKING WIMP ASS LOSERS. You will not fight. You have no fucking spine. there is nothing to you but talk. We rightwingers will be back tomorrow to smear you and your beliefs and you will eat it up. Hell if enough of us start posting you’ll pay for more bandwidth. Absolutely fucking incredible. You think this shit would fly on a rightwing blog. Hell no! We have balls!
Obviously the fake puddybud.
Marvin@10:
You are soooooooooooooo correct. This is all they have.
Thanks for the sockpuppet whomever@9.
Marvin@10: I wonder if Obama is still on the ACORN rolls?
Marvin@10: Mean and hateful, that what Donkey are…
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080911/ap_on_el_pr/sc_democrat_palin
Then they ask for forgiveness
Besides the honor of being sockpuppeted, I, and you too probably, feel honored that so many of the regulars that have been reading our words all of the sudden jump on something our sockpuppet said thinking they finally had a gotcha moment. No doubt they are disappointed to learn they fell for the words of a sockpuppet.
I’m thinking bibigoober. Headless lucy posted a few minutes before my first sockpuppet appeared.
TROLL AT 5 CLEAN THE SHIT OUT OF HIS DIAPER.PALIN SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF HIM.LETS BE HONEST IVE GOT TOILET PAPER THICKER THAN HIS RESUME.
@6
Then you’d be in favor of some form of proof of citizenship being necessary in order to vote, I would assume? How else to insure that nothing illegal occurs?
Sockpuppet @9,
I’ve left this comment up, merely changing your name, so that I can be as clear as possible on this: we don’t allow sock puppetry or spoofing. Period.
I couldn’t give a shit about Cynical, but you spoof him and you could just as easily spoof me. It’s a do unto other world here.
Grab yourself a pseudonym and kick the hell out of the trolls all you want. But when folks spoof the screen names of our resident commenters… even the batshit crazy ones… what little dialogue we have breaks down.
That’s the problem. He can’t kick anything except his dog.
This is his only alternative to “get us.”
YOU HEARD IT HERE
Biden will resign – Hillary will come on the ticket.
THE ONLY PATH TO OBAMA WINNING IS HILLARY
Biden gave us a preview yesterday … just sayin’
Every Latino I know is voting for Mc Cain – there is tension between Black and Latino communities.
And, Mc Cain pushed for decent immigration reform, the Maverick.
Sorry to burst the hype.
Most of the remaining “unregistered” (i.e. undocumented) immigrants are functional illiterates. T%hat’s not a slam, but a general summary. Unless there are basic pictures attached to the ballot, they are SOL. Horsey better get busy.
Hey–is Horsey why this blog was named HorseysAss?
Well, being part Hispanic and growing up on the Mexican border I can tell you that Hispanics I know are voting Obama (sorry to burst your bubble there Arthur).
Why? Because McCain, coming from Arizona and working on immigration issues for years, and what exactly has he got done for Hispanics? Oh, and they are building that lovely fence in Arizona.
Obama’s plan is fair and I think most Hispanics will recognize that.
Yes, Hispanics tend to be traditional and conservative but they are nothing if not pragmatic. Bush has done nothing for them either so I think you’ll see a new surge to the left in this election.