Subscribe by RSSObama, McCain aiming for Hispanic voters
On the campaign trail this week, both Obama and McCain have been targeting the Hispanic vote in a big way. Obama has been trailing with Hispanic voters since they seemed to favor Hillary Clinton during the primary. However, recent polls show that Obama still has a large lead over McCain with the Hispanic population.
Report from Yahoo News:
WASHINGTON - Presidential rivals John McCain and Barack Obama on Saturday vied for the support of Hispanics, beginning a four-month courtship of a pivotal voting constituency by vowing to revamp immigration policy.
“I come from a border state, my dear friends. I know these issues,” McCain told Hispanic elected officials. The Republican senator from Arizona said overhauling the country’s broken immigration system, not just securing its borders, “will be my top priority.”
Appearing later before the same audience, Obama accused McCain of walking away from comprehensive immigration reform. The Democratic senator from Illinois said: “We must assert our values and reconcile our principles as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. That is a priority I will pursue from my very first day.”
The two spoke separately to some 700 Hispanics attending the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference. It’s the first of three such appearances each is scheduled to make to Hispanic organizations in less than a month, underscoring the importance of the nation’s fastest-growing minority group.
Both McCain and Obama were warmly received at NALEO; the crowd gave each standing ovations and cheered loudly. When McCain spoke, the audience shouted down anti-war protesters who interrupted the Republican’s speech four times. The audience chanted Obama’s name when the Democrat entered later. As he took the stage, Obama said “Si, se puede!” — his “yes we can” campaign slogan in Spanish — and the crowd echoed him.
Earlier, McCain met separately and privately with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, while Obama stopped by Walter Reed Army Medical Center to visit wounded war veterans. McCain also attended an evening fundraiser in Kentucky, where he criticized anew Obama’s withdrawal from the public financing system and said, “Senator Obama’s word cannot be trusted.”
Hispanics, however, were the primary focus as each makes an aggressive play for this up-for-grabs group that’s likely to carry important weight in battleground states of Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and others with large numbers of Spanish-speaking voters.
A recent AP-Yahoo News poll showed that Obama lead McCain among Hispanics, 47 percent to 22 percent with 26 percent undecided.
Video report from the Associated Press on Obama:
Video report on McCain, also from the AP:
For the most part, McCain should do fairly well, however, I wouldn’t be spending all my time on the Hispanic voter block. They are overwhelmingly registered Democrats and will mostly break for Obama.
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If you look at polls from the democratic primaries, you see HIllary won the majority of hispanics and always won their votes in every state. The poll that says Obama is getting 46% is horribly off. In elections and just in regular life hispanics, do not like african-americans, and the majority will not vote for Obama because of that. That is one reason why they all went to Clinton for the most part. I believe McCain will win the majority of hispanics because of this.
Well, there’s a possibility you’re right, O_S. There are some Hispanic voters on the McCain site who have indeed switched their support to McCain, but it’s a tentative support. They seem to be carefully watching everything he’s doing - nothing wrong with that - and really liked that he went to Mexico and Columbia. Of course, many others (some staunch conservatives) didn’t like him going there and were angry about it. The issues surrounding Hispanic votes seem to be very precarious ones, and the majority of that vote could still swing either way, IMHO. Of course I hope it swings to McCain, but the jury is really still out on that one.
The only reason that Democrats get any Hispanics votes is because of their platform of appeasment when it comes to illegal immigration. Hispanics as a whole, skew toward more conservative principles, especially traditional family values and religious affiliation.
From what I could gather in the Primaries, Clinton got most of the Hispanic votes because Hispanics and Blacks don’t get along and Obama overwhelmingly got the Black votes, so the Hispanics didn’t really gel with him.
I think putting Bill Richardson on the ticket might swing a lot of Hispanics Obama’s way.
Yeah exactly Stalin, they agree on many core principles with conservatives, but not on illegal immigration and in some ways even though I wish McCain was different on his stance on illegal immigration, it is the best way he could get hispanic votes and also appeal to the republican base at the same time in some way. But the yahoo poll is greatly flawes, I believe in no way will Obama get 46% of hispanics, I believe in many ways either a great deal will not vote or will switch to McCain.
O_S, I’m confused…..did you make a trip to England? Your little flag has changed?
I think what you are referring to as a policy of appeasement is being unjustly labeled. Most democrats I’ve heard speak on the issue firmly believe in closing the borders as tightly as possible and stemming the tide of illegal immigration. The disagreement between the parties is largely about what to do with those illegal immigrants already in the country, and I don’t believe that’s a matter of appeasement but of practicality.
A discussion for another time though.
The fact is that the republican party doesn’t come off as being very friendly to hispanics. Aside from the fact that people who have the strongest feelings on illegal immigration tend to also look at every hispanic as if they’re an illegal immigrant unless proven otherwise, the republican party is also the most outspoken on the issue of fighting the tide of spanish language in the country, and formalizing english as our national language. The vast majority of people I’ve heard give rants on “If you’re going to come to America, for God’s sake, learn to speak english!” have been republicans. It’s a sore spot for some reason.
Well guess what, if you’re listening to that angry rant, and you can understand english but only barely speak it, or if this describes people you know and love - it doesn’t seem all that welcoming. It seems insulting and apathetic.
I agree with O_S though, I think the republicans could tap their voting block if the party seemed more welcoming.
Yes Babs I did. Out here for three weeks, and its very hard because it is not smart for me to speak my views out here, they are all labor party(democrats) and very much hate conservatives.
IndiMinded, I believe this is the first time we sort of agree on something in a longtime.LOL
I don’t think the yahoo poll is overestimating Obama’s support among Hispanics. Yesterday’s Gallup poll has an even larger margin going for Obama (though similar ratios of Obama-to-Mcain when undecided are taken out of the equation):
http://www.gallup.com/pol.....Obama.aspx
I suspect that Hispanic’s disfavor of McCain stems not just from draconian Republican immigration policies, but that he’s a Republican from a major border state enforcing such policies.
OS,
I think you’ve drunk to much British beer. Most of the UK now are against Labour and for the Conservatives (Tories) which is why they are far ahead in the polls, because Gordon Brown is crap at his job.
Most Brits see Brown and previously Blair as Bush lap dogs for following him into Iraq. I think you’re confused with Brits being pro-Labour (Democrats as you put it) just becasue the can’t stand Bush (Republican).
I can pretty much assure you that no matter who is in The Whitehouse, if their foreign policies affects Brits then they don’t particularly like them, regardless if they’re Democrats or Repubiclans.
NZ, I think O_S is probably right. The UK press are drinking the koolaid big time.