Battleground Latinos

A cutout of Barack Obama at a Mexican Independence Day celebration in Denver last month (Getty Images)

New Mexico took center stage over the weekend on a 20-minute segment — New Voters in the New West — on NOW in PBS. Reporter Maria Hinojosa calls New Mexico “the battleground of battleground states” as she follows both campaigns’ efforts in the state. The report focuses on young voters and Latinos.

In 2004, Republicans won the state by just shy of 6,000 votes. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who campaigned for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 and is trying to deliver the state in November for Sen. Barack Obama told Hinojosa, “Senator Kerry is still mad at me.”

Obama has 39 field offices in the state compared to 10 for McCain and 6 for Kerry last cycle. The PBS report tries to run against conventional wisdom, following around a group of college-aged McCain supporters and highlighting lingering concerns among the usually Democratic-leaning Latino community.

“It’s risky for Obama’s campaign to assume that we’re going to vote Democrat just because we’re registered Democrat,” community activisit Arturo Uribe said. Uribe, who is seen encouraging community members to register to vote but not backing a candidate in the report, said race, religion, and other factors mean Obama can’t take the Latino community for granted. He also said some Latinos worry that with an African-American president, blacks would become the “preferred minority.”

“I’d rather go with the old man,” one middle aged Latino man told a group of Obama canvassers. “He’s got the experience.”

In a poll of New Mexico voters conducted last week for the Albuquerque Journal, “62 percent of Hispanics surveyed favored Obama, while 17 percent backed McCain and 21 percent were undecided.” Brian Sanderoff, president of the firm that conducted the poll, estimated that Bush carried up to 38 percent of the Latino vote in the state in 2004. Among all likely voters polled,Obama is ahead of McCain 45 to 40 percent.

In Colorado, where Latinos are expected to account for more than 10 percent of voters for the first time and could thus determine who carries the state, a recent poll has Obama ahead of McCain among Latino voters 68 to 26 percent.

The Obama campaign’s registration and get out the vote efforts are bolstered by nonprofit groups that target low income communities, including many that are predominately Latino. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a coalition of groups targeting low income families, announced today that it exceeded goals in Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico in its voter registration efforts with Project Vote.

A subset of Latinos being courted are new citizens. Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer with the Pew Hispanic Center, told the AP, “In places where the election is very close, they make all the difference in the world,” New citizens, like other first time voters, are excited to cast their first ballot and tend to be good ambassadors in their communities, either for particular candidates or simply to promote the importance of civic engagement.

“We can make the difference in these elections,” Arturo Munoz, a Salvadoran native who became a U.S. citizen in August, told the AP through a translator. “If more Hispanics vote, the future president will have to address topics important to them.”

VP Debate Editorials and Columns in the Battle for the West

Denver Post: “Palin had fun. But her frequent dependence on cheerful phrases like ‘darn it’ or ‘doggone it’ and her avoidance of specifics and entire lines of questions will no doubt keep her critics on the attack… Palin’s biggest task is convincing undecided voters that she could lead should she have to, and it’s hard to see whether her performance, as clean as it was, held enough substance to sway them.”

Las Vegas Review-Journal: “Gov. Palin actually looked like she was enjoying herself, especially as the evening wore on, whereas Sen. Biden, as the evening progressed, looked more like a scowling sourpuss…if Americans are looking for a fresh new face, someone who can connect with ‘Main Street,’ Gov. Palin’s performance — perhaps she ‘lost on points’ — might help push the Republican ticket toward victory.”

Las Vegas Sun: “[Palin] smiled a lot and certainly was folksy, peppering her comments with phrases such as ‘I’ll betcha’ and ‘heck of a lot.’ There is nothing wrong with a down-to-earth demeanor — we wish more politicians were like that. At the same time, however, folksiness can’t substitute for substance. The Bush presidency is a case in point.”

Pueblo Colorado Chieftan columnist Chuck Green: “Palin showed… she could stand toe-to-toe with one of the Senate’s best. But she didn’t display an impressive grasp of issues and didn’t display a great sense of confidence. Biden projected confidence and a wide range of knowledge on several issues, but he misstated the facts or outright lied about the historical record at least six times during the 90-minute production. He might look like a statesmanlike U.S. senator and exude confidence, but Americans still can’t believe what comes out of his mouth.”

Reno Gazette-Journal: “Can we please bring back the final ‘g’ in words ending in ‘-ing’? Palin seems to drop it — as in ‘I was talkin’ to some soccer moms’ — to show that she’s one of the folks, but Sen. Barack Obama does it, too, and so does seemingly every TV newscaster in Reno. That may be OK in casual talk among friends, but it has no place in formal speechmaking… Just as we expect candidates to pronounce the name of our state right, we should expect them to pronounce ‘-ing’ right. It may not be folksy, but it is presidential.”

Rocky Mountain News columnist Mike Littwin: “In any case, even if Biden won in the instant-polls, Palin did well enough in memorizing talking points and occasionally winking that the McCain campaign is sending her immediately to Colorado… McCain probably can’t lose Colorado - where he’s trailing in the polls - and win the election.”

Santa Fe New Mexican columnist Bill Stewart: “[Palin] was folksy and friendly, deflecting questions for which she was unprepared… Palin connects on a personal level. It is probably her greatest political strength. It is one of Biden’s strengths as well. He teared up when talking about the challenge of being a single father following the tragic deaths of his first wife and his daughter.”

Civil War Over Political Relevance in NV

“If we are not careful, the North may become the center of Nevada’s political universe,” warns the Las Vegas Sun’s Jon Ralston in an appeal to his fellow southern Nevadans. “Washoe County may go Democratic and Reno already has, perhaps making the North decisive. This cannot stand. The South must rise again!”

Ralston points to the recent stories in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times with Washoe County datelines as evidence for the shift in influence. The little swing county that could may be the sexier story for national media, but Las Vegas’s Clark County still accounts for more than two-thirds of all registered voters in the state.

Perhaps that’s why eight of Sen. Barack Obama’s 16 field offices in the state are in Clark County. For comparison, Sen. John McCain’s campaign has nine locations — some of them shared space with local GOP offices — and 2004 Democratic candidate John Kerry maintained two offices four years ago, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Clearly, Obama had a head start on building grass-roots support,” Reno-based Republican consultant and lobbyist Pete Ernaut told the Review-Journal. “McCain’s campaign has been playing catch-up.”

Observations

On Saturday, the New York Times offered snapshot portraits of five cities being heavily courted by both campaigns; three are in Battle for the West states. They turned to local reporters or columnists, not Times staff writers, to file the reports.

Pueblo, Colorado

“Pueblo is traditionally a Democratic town, though conservative Democrat… McCain is looking for those disenchanted independents, he’s looking for those Hillary voters, he’s looking for Hispanic voters. Everyone is aware of the long-held tensions between African-Americans and Hispanics; he’s looking for whatever Hispanics he can pick up.” – Peter Roper, political reporter, The Pueblo Chieftain

Elko, Nevada

“George Bush might not be our president if not for Elko, which proves beyond a shadow of any doubt that every vote truly does count. But this election could be Elko’s last hurrah… Clearly, Elko County with its huge conservative base will carry the day for McCain-Palin, but by how much? Enough to offset Obama’s doubtless victory in Clark County, home to Las Vegas where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 100,000? I wouldn’t bet my paycheck on that one.” – Doug McMurdo, associate editor, Elko Daily Free Press

Las Cruces, New Mexico

“Las Cruces has always been a Democratic-leaning community, but socially conservative on values like guns and religion… I have read media accounts of Hispanic voters being reluctant to vote forObama, or any black candidate. If that sentiment exists, I haven’t seen it.” – Walt Rubell, managing editor, Las Cruces Sun-News