Great news from the west

Are you listening Sen. McCain?

The BBC reports on the finding of the bodies of 2 missing American soldiers in Iraq, Alex Jimenez and Byron Fouty. Both had been missing over a year.

Of course I expect nothing but cliches from you. And it goes without saying our hearts go out to the families. But draw a larger picture, Senator. The Jimenez family had to be told in Spanish that their son's body was found.

FISA is sucking the energy out of me, so I felt the need to post a more upbeat and hopeful diary.  I ran across this and didn't think it was getting enough attention (It looks like there was a previous diary on this topic, but it got yanked)...

Both Barack Obama and John McCain delivered speeches to the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in Washington on Tuesday.

According to the Houston Chronicle and the San Francisco Chronicle, Obama won by a large margin.

Obama, who was introduced by former Clinton supporter - Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, delivered a new speech which directly addressed LULAC and immigration reform.  

According to the SF Chronicle:

Illinois Sen. Obama, largely an unknown among Latino voters only months ago, drew a standing ovation after delivering a rousing populist speech aimed directly at their core concerns - immigration, education and health care.

When George W Bush introduced his plan to use federal funds to back faith-based programs, I was outraged, as were many other firm believers in separation of church and state.

Obama's plan, on the other hand, does what Bush's plan pretended to do.  It strengthens the partnership between church and community, to help faith-based programs combat social ills like poverty.  And most importantly, Obama's plan WILL NOT give federal money to any program that has the intention to proselytize, or will use religion as a basis to hire or not hire someone.

Consider all the primary-era bullshit spin we heard the first half of this year, and none was more offensive to me than the notion that Latinos wouldn't support Obama because (a) he was black, or (b) they supported Clinton too heavily, or (c) because McCain had a good relationship with that group based on his pre-flip flop support for comprehensive immigration reform, or (d) because that's what the b.s. convention wisdom told them and they were too frackin' stupid to think for themselves.

We've already seen evidence that the CW was terribly awry on this issue.

There was a growing consensus during the Democratic primary season that Obama was going to struggle with Latino voters -- due to the exit polls, his race, and McCain’s immigration stance. In fact, in that now-famous conference call in which Hillary Clinton indicated that she would be open to serving as Obama’s running mate, that response was spurred by concern by New York Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D) that Obama was going to have trouble with Latinos. But it looks like that CW -- at least right now -- was wrong. In addition to our recent NBC/WSJ poll, which showed Hispanics breaking for Obama 62%-28%, a new survey of 800 Latino voters from 21 states finds that 60% of them plan to vote for Obama versus 23% for McCain. That is down considerably from the 40%-plus Bush received in 2004. It’s no longer fair to say that Obama has a problem with Latino voters; McCain does. This was a case of conventional wisdom that was never based on fact, just semi-informed speculation based on primary exit polling and bad stereotypes of Latinos.

Gallup now offers additional evidence that Latinos, in fact, are poised to support Obama in record numbers:

Some political experts assumed Obama's struggle to attract widespread Hispanic support in the primaries would carry over into the general-election campaign against the Republican candidate. But Hispanics have become a reliable Democratic voting bloc, and have so far shown little difficulty in transferring their loyalties from Clinton to Obama. Obama continues to lead McCain by about a 2-to-1 margin among Hispanic voters, as he has since March. Hispanic voters could be crucial in key swing states such as New Mexico, Colorado, and Florida.

While George W. Bush made a strong push for the Hispanic vote in the 2000 and 2004 elections, McCain faces an uphill climb to attract Hispanics' support, given their consistent and solid support for Obama in recent months.

Remember, Kerry won the Latino vote in 2004 only 53-44 per the exit polls. Latinos have been one of the biggest swing demographics in recent years. They are not as reliably Democratic as some believe. Yet here we are, already showing a 30-point lead and one that I'm willing to bet grows. It'll be at least 70-30 by election night, if not 75-25.

This, of course, matters greatly because, in short, us Latinos are growing stronger by the year.

oting by Hispanics surged in the last congressional elections, showing strength that could swing this year's presidential vote in closely contested states like Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.
A government report released Tuesday shows that 5.6 million Hispanics voted in the 2006 general election, an increase of 18% over 2002, the previous year for a federal election without a presidential race on the ballot. That compares to a 7% increase among white voters and a 5% increase for black voters.

"For years they called the Latinos the sleeping giant. Well, they woke us up," said Luis Vera, general counsel for the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC.

Vera said the debate over illegal immigration has energized Hispanic voters, a trend he expects to continue this year.

There's a reason Karl Rove worked so hard with Bush to try and bring over that demographic -- which is socially very conservative -- over to the GOP.

Also in the interview, Rove worried that after the recent immigration debate, the Republican Party risks losing the Hispanic political support that he and Bush worked to build up in the past three elections, going back to their days inTexas.

"I am worried about it, and you cannot ignore the aspirations of the fastest-growing minority in America. We did that once before, and that's why we were able to increase our vote among African Americans by 40 percent between 2000 and 2004, going from an incredibly anemic 9 percent to a virtually anemic 13 percent. And we better not put ourselves in the place with a vital part of the electorate that fundamentally shares our values and views."

Obama is poised to win Latinos huge, and with them, the states of Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and maybe even Florida. Smaller Latino populations are helping lock down Oregon, Wisconsin and Washington (and of course California), will play a role in Missouri and Ohio (which will likely remain tight through election day), and may even help drag Texas into contention.

Remember all these people telling us just a few weeks ago that Obama will not win over Latino voters? Just a couple of weeks ago, Kinky Friedman on Imus show was barely containing himself saying that there was only one Latino who voted for Obama in El Paso.

We don't hear this as much, don't we? Poll after poll proves this notion wrong.

A new national survey (done by Pacific Market Research and University of Washington) of Latino voters shows Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama with a nearly 3-to-1 advantage over his rival, Republican John McCain. Obama lead 60-23 which is consistent with other recent polls.

Probably, one of the more disengeneous arguments from the Clinton campaign was to stroke the racial flames between Blacks and Hispanics. As an African American woman, I am pleased that Latinos are giving Obama a second look. I am still annoyed with the Clintons primary strategy to pit one ethnic group against another ethnic group. (Sorry, folks, it will take me a long time to forget and forgive.)

With all the hoopla on the Clinton's nonconcession speech and the secret meeting, I thought some good news is in order. According to Gallup, Obama is gaining support among Latinos. He has a 62 percent advantage over McCain with Hispanics.

(Crossposted at CtW Connect)

Meet Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez.

On May 13, seventeen-year-old Maria was a farmworker, working the grape vineyard of West Coast Grape Farming in Stockton, California alongside her fiancee, Florentino Bautista.

Three days later, Maria was dead -- killed after working nine straight hours in the broiling heat of the California summer, without access to water or shade.

Learn more about Maria's story -- and what you can do to help prevent further farmworker deaths -- after the jump...

A lot of people seem to be forgetting something in this election. Democrats have nominated two white men on the ticket every year (except the year that Ferraro was on the ticket) since 1972.

My first diary, so please be nice...

This diary is cross-posted at my blog, where I've posted two great pictures, safe for work (!), of John, the hot, hot, hot muscle bear. If you're gay and turned on by the hirsute among us, John's picture will stimulate. ;-)

In the effort to get out the vote for Senator Obama in Pennsylvania, more Spanish speaking volunteers are needed.  If you speak Spanish, contact the PA Obama campaign on their website and they’ll direct you to where you can be of help.

Hispanics represent about 4.1% of the population of PA.  "The Hispanic population in Pennsylvania (506,084) passed the half-million mark for the first time in 2005. The number of persons of Hispanic or Latino origin increased 5.4 percent from 2004 -2005, and grew more than 28 percent over the last six years." (US Census 2006)

The majority of are registered as Democrats.  However, they have not turned out in the primaries in great numbers.   I realize that much of the discussion as been about the white working class vote in PA, but don’t overlook a group of Democrats who can help push the numbers up, and who should be a strong consituency for the message of change.

Hillary and Bill Clinton and their campaign were correct in pointing out that Clinton/Obama Obama/Clinton would be a formidable ticket. Not because of some master strategy, because of demographics and the numbers in play.  Before the Wright scandal, I heartily disagreed with them.  Now I must admit my assessment of Obama's risk has jumped considerably with the Wright issue.  

I work in the insurance industry, and one of the core tenets of insurance is spreading the risk.  Now the Hillary/Obama ticket would spread the risk a little, but it would also add risk in the form of Clinton baggage.

But there is another way. A solution to spread the risk, lock in demographic sectors, and concentrate on fighting for McCain's voters.

This solution has 2 parts.  It can only work if both parts are used together.  Both together, not one or the other.  Here goes.

We continue to repeat the polls from two years ago in order...

Race and Ethnicity is certainly at least as contentious a topic as Sex/Gender, and not nearly as real as Age.

Race/Ethnicity is not a matter of skin color, genetics, country of origin, upbringing, social-economic status, personal family history, national history, social-cultural construct... it is bits of all of those.  I have tried to follow the U.S. Census definitions, with some modifications.

Once again, please take the poll itself seriously, and save the humor, snark, and uhmmmm... comments, etc. for the comments section.  

Once again, hopefully, this poll will stay up in the Recommended Diary section for at least 24, so that everybody at all local hours in all times zones will have an equal opportunity to participate.

Recently there has been a lot of speculation that Barack Obama has cut in to the support Hillary Clinton has among Latino voters, particularly in Texas.

Ruben Navarrette even goes so far in an opinion piece on CNN today as stating:

If Hillary Clinton loses the Democratic nomination for president, she might be able to trace her troubles back to when she lost her grip on the Latino vote.

Bill Clinton called it. The ex-president may have doomed his wife's candidacy with his meddling but he was right about one thing: Several weeks ago, he told Spanish-language radio host Eddie "El Piolin" Sotelo that Latinos would "determine the nominee of the Democratic Party and the next president of the United States."

So they might. Just not in the way that the former president imagined.

When he made his prediction, Hillary Clinton was leading Barack Obama among Latinos by a 2-1 margin. No mas.

Sorry Ruben, tu estas equivocado. Mas!

Hillary Clinton has consistently supported NAFTA, right up until the point she decided to run for President.  For her to try to cry foul at the Obama campaign for pointing out her shifting positions is ludicrous.  She runs around the country trying to take credit for everything that her husband did as president, but then when people bring up NAFTA, she starts railing on about how it helped Bush's "corporate cronies."  She was ardent supporter of NAFTA when her husband signed it, so what has changed?

Today, Obama began stumping deep in the heart of Texas, where he drew 19,000 suporters to a rally in downtown Houston.  


An hour before the doors opened, the line looked like this, with people wrapped all the way around the Toyota center:

Latino turnout seemed low, though, which is a bit worrisome.  Follow me past the fold, where I expound on the latino factor, give my impressions from the rally, and offer some observations about how things look on the ground here in Texas.

CNN's horrid "The Black/Brown Divide" segment was just decimated by their own expert panelists -- to paraphrase:

Host:  The BLACK/BROWN DIVIDE.  Is it true that Latinos won't vote for Blacks?

Black Panelist:  The "Black/Brown Divide" is bullshit.  Neither group represents a homogeneous bloc of voters.

Latino Panelist: The "Black/Brown Divide" is bullshit. Neither group represents a homogeneous bloc of voters.  Look at the record of Latinos voting heavily for black candidates across the country.

Host: But we have a quote from a Clinton campaign staffer saying so.  Take a look.

Latino Panelist: That Clinton staffer is paid to say that.  That's bullshit and why would you listen to them anyway?

I'm no partisan, I'm officially an undecided voter who would be happy with any candidate that can mop the floor with McCain and hand the reins of government over to the responsible adults in the country.

But as a person with one foot in the African-American community and the other in the Mexican-American community, this latest meme is something I simply cannot stand!