Campaigns Ignoring Pennsylvania Latinos

Both presidential campaign seem to be ignoring the state's large Latino population in their quests to lose votes April 22nd.  This mystifies me and I don't quite understand why both the Obama and Clinton campaigns aren't responding to invitations to attend a major healthcare event in Reading.  Phila Back, who is organizing the event for the Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition, Working Families Win and the Latino Coalition of Berks County, is running into stone walls trying to get each campaign to send a Latino surrogate to the event at Reading Area Community College.  This is the only event the PA Statewide latino Coalition has scheduled for this primary season.

I also understand little outreach is being done in some of our major Latino areas.  The community leaders seem baffled by the shunning and we're at risk of losing their support.  This population is crucial to our winning in November and we need to be addressing their issues, needs and concerns and involving them in the process.

If either campaign is interested in cooperating with this event contact me, you know how to reach me, and I'll get you in touch with Phila Back.

Comments

[DC93]

Honestly, John, back in 2004 when I was covering the Kerry campaign at city precincts to do vote tally reporting, and I was at two precincts that were pretty heavily populated with Latino voters, the turnout was quite frankly dismal.

I don't know if this could be attributed to any kind of "voter intimidation" allegations, as I didn't really see anything out of the ordinary there at the time, or some other factors.

Still, when the most recent previous elections show that certain groups may show support, but not ballot box support, then it stands to reason that they'd probably not pander to them or court them in any real way as much the next time. Now, I don't if I really agree with that logic or rationale but the old adage about "picking one's battles" comes to mind a bit. Yet, clearly those Latinos who used to side with Bush b/c of the state he came from, are clearly not in love with him and GOP that much anymore, if at all.

So, I think it would behoove the campaigns to pony up and play ball and realize just how much of a potential and existing voter base of Latinos that we have here in this region of PA. What they need to do is work at increasing the confidence of Latino voters that their votes will be counted, their voice heard, and that they won't have to fear some government agency hassling them about their "immigration status".

I know I've spoken at length and against all illegal immigrants on other blog posts of yours, but I think that the continued prevalence of media coverage about illegals and how many are in the area, often living with legal relatives or natural born relatives, raises the spectre of not wanting to be publicly noticed, by something even as small as voting.

[Graham]

I thought I'd be coming to your blog a lot as Pennsylvania gears up for the primary, but I've been here rarely.

I think your view of out of control Obama volunteers is a little skewed. I see nuts on both side of the fence, and I think it's a stuffy cliche to blame Obama for his 'cult' or more off-the-cuff supporters. His supporters tend to be more visible, period. I personally think the lunacy is pretty equally spread out.

Also, for what it's worth the Obama camp started airing a Spanish-language advertisement in PA today. I'm sure it's a bit of an overstatement to say the Clinton camp is ignoring them, too.

You approach a lot of this with an unnecessarily negative tone, John. "..In their quests to lose votes April 22nd"...? Need I say more? Sigh.

[John Morgan]

These idiot Obama volunteers have been warned numerous times, told to check their facts, told the facts and they continue spreading their smears. They are refusing to end their conduct. They have two choices: public humiliation on the blog or a letter from my attorney. This is cheaper for me and saves them from losing their homes. Win, win.

I have their emails. I have emails telling them the facts which they summarily ignored and continued smearing others. I know Carol's history of doing this to others, depending on questionable sources, refusing to fact check, and costing us elections. Worse she isn't some newbie but a Democratic Committeewoman.

[E]

John,

Obama has an ad in spanish trying to reach out to Latino voters on the air in PA.

[John Morgan]

Explain, then, why they aren't responding to the PA Statewide Latino Coalitions requests?

[Graham]

When I say that I feel your attitude is a little skewed, I don't mean that the Obama supporters you mean to specifically talk about here aren't as hostile and wrong as you say they are. I feel like much of your words have taken on a more generalized tone than is appropriate, that's all. I mean, I don't think the majority of Obama supporters are represented at all by this Carol character.

It's irritating when one feels lumped in with a group of troublemakers that they only have one identifiable trait in common with.

[John Morgan]

It's unfortunate that a group of goons blemishes the work of thousands of other volunteers. The result is that I have decided I will no longer cover the Obama campaign. No information on their campaign events, no coverage of those events, no publishing news or commercials, etc.

In the first day after I first published the details of Obama's bus tour that article got over 1200 unique hits directly from Google by people searching for the information. This is what I get for spending a good bit of money driving around the state covering Barack? Not one person, meanwhile, not ONE, has dropped a contribution in my tip box to help cover these expenses.