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A new poll by Latino Decisions of 1,600 registered Latino voters in New Mexico, Colorado, Florida and Nevada shows those polled in three of the states overwhelmingly support Barack Obama. Only in Florida do voters say they prefer John McCain; in the other three states, Barack Obama leads by at least forty points. "The Latino vote will be critical in the Southwest and Florida, and results of this poll show very clearly that Latinos may well provide Sen. Barack Obama with the margin of victory," said Matt Barreto in the polling memo. Barreto is a University of Washington professor of...

Despite championing immigration reform in 2007, John McCain is poised to lose the Hispanic vote by a landslide margin that is well below President George W. Bush's 2004 performance. Polls show Obama winning the broadest support from Latino voters of any Democrat in a decade, while McCain is struggling to reach 30 percent, closer to Senator Bob Dole's dismal 1996 result than to Bush's historic 40% four years ago. McCain seems to have wound up with the worst of both worlds: He appears to be getting no credit from Latino voters for his past support for immigration reform, while carrying...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- No sooner had the video gone up of popular Hispanic actor Eduardo Verástegui denouncing presidential candidate Barack Obama on abortion than YouTube officials took it down. The video sharing site removed the full version of the video, which showed graphic images of abortions.It did, however, leave an edited version in place that contains the Bella actor urging Latinos to vote against Obama without the footage of babies who have died from abortions.The Verástegui video has already caught fire across the Internet with more than 8,000 people viewing it in only two days.It features the former...

It wasn't too long ago that Florida Democrats were celebrating a surge among Hispanic voters. They were a new generation that embraced new ideas, breaking rank from the wrinkly graybeards stuck in a 1960s time warp. You might want to cancel the Republican obit. Old-school isn't going away quietly. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is 10 percentage points behind Republican John McCain among Hispanics in Florida, according to a Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times/Bay News 9 poll that was released recently.

Well, at least if you're a Latino who supports democracies, that is.

Well, at least if you're a Latino who supports democracies, that is. Yesterday here in New York, VP candidate Sarah Palin met with President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia. Thank you Governor Palin. Thank you for taking the time to sit down with Colombia's president and showing the respect to listen to the democratically elected leader of one of our most important allies. And thank you President Bush for greeting Colombia's president warmly on Saturday and having your Commerce Secretary do the same. I can't thank any Democrats for doing the same, though. Even though Uribe's concerns are not partisan ones,...

New citizens, new voters Friday, September 19, 2008 By Sherri Williams THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Carmen Ladman used to plan her trips home to El Salvador around her country's presidential elections so she could vote. After becoming a U.S. citizen yesterday, she won't have to travel so far to cast her ballot this year. She will vote in America for the first time. "How important this election is for this country made me apply (for citizenship) to vote," said Ladman, 52, who has lived in the United States 12 years. "I'm a believer that we all have to do something. "If...

ESPANOLA — Barack Obama recapped the nightmarish week in the U.S. economy, accused rival John McCain of being indecisive and out of touch and made a direct appeal to northern New Mexico's Hispanic voters during a sun-drenched rally here Thursday afternoon that drew thousands of backers. "We are in the midst of the most serious financial crisis in a generation — perhaps the worst since the Great Depression," Obama said on the packed Plaza de Española, where a sea of fans sporting sunglasses, sunburns and red-white-and-blue "Change" posters waited for hours to hear the Democratic presidential candidate speak. "We can't...

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- The new offensive in the presidential election is a Spanish-language air war in which each party is trying to convince Latino voters that the other is no amigo to the nation's largest minority and that it did them wrong during the immigration debacle in Congress. ... Stop the tape! The spots are hard-hitting, but only one hits the target. The McCain-Palin ad is accurate. But the Obama-Biden ad is riddled with problems.

A new Survey USA poll is in and it shows Barack Obama back on top in the race for president in New Mexico, pulling ahead of Republican John McCain. The poll shows Obama leading McCain by 8 percentage points, 52-44. The poll indicates that Obama is leading among Hispanic voters. That’s contrary to a poll out last week. It showed the race being much tighter. "If Obama is indeed up, as this poll suggests, by 41 points among Hispanics, that is a very big change from last week and it could certainly be the difference that Obama is seeing here...

The Obama campaign has released new radio and TV ads in Spanish that seek to tie Sen. John McCain to anti-immigrant comments made by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The ads also suggest the Republican has "dos caras" -- "two faces" -- when it comes to his relations with Latino voters. The new messages, airing in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, come in response to recent Spanish-language ads by the McCain campaign that suggest Obama is responsible for the collapse of last year's bipartisan immigration reform efforts. "They want us to forget the insults we've put up with, the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Well, now, isn't this interesting, ladies and gentlemen. We're working on getting the audio to this. This is from the Washington Post's blog called The Trail today, story by Ed O'Keefe. "The Obama campaign has released new radio and TV ads in Spanish that seek to tie Sen. John McCain to anti-immigrant comments made by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The ads also suggest the Republican has 'dos caras' -- 'two faces' -- when it comes to his relations with Latino voters. The new messages, airing in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, come in response to...

The Barack Obama campaign has a new Spanish-language ad that features racial demagoguery and a distortion of Rush Limbaugh quotes... The Obama campaign misquoted Rush by omitting the context; the context certainly doesn't show Rush in a good light, but it's far different from what the Obama campaign is trying to do: pretend that Rush said that all Mexicans are "stupid and unqualified". The BHO campaign is lying. The second quote is just as bad; it was actually from a satire in which Rush proposed a series of draconian immigration laws, only to reveal at the end that those were...

Rush Limbaugh, featured in a new, Spanish-language Barack Obama ad, says the commercial distorts his past statements and amounts to "race-baiting" by the Democratic nominee. The commercial, to air in Limbaugh's home state of Florida as well as Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, features a picture of the conservative talk show host and shows his words on the screen: "Mexicans are stupid and unqualified" and "Shut your mouth or get out." It was first reported by the Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe. "Obama is now stoking racism in the country," Limbaugh wrote in an email. "Obama is a disgrace - he...

But, talking about secure borders... -Sure. -You voted for the construction of the wall between Mexico and the United States. However, the Mexican Government has just confirmed that every year, at least half a million Mexicans come to the United States. How exactly are you planning to secure that border? Every single minute there is an immigrant coming into the United States illegally. -I didn't vote for, I am not sure what you are talking about, but we can secure... -...about 700 miles. -I say we can secure our borders with walls and/or fences in urban areas, and then virtual...

Speaking to a predominantly Hispanic audience considered crucial to winning Florida, Republican John McCain vowed Monday to make immigration one of his ''first priorities'' if elected president and accused Democrat Barack Obama of spiking reforms in Congress. McCain spearheaded a bill in 2006 -- reviled by the right wing of his own party -- that would have allowed illegal immigrants to earn citizenship. Obama supported the overall goal but backed controversial amendments that would have limited a guest worker program. ''The fact is that Sen. Obama proposed amendments that would have killed the legislation. I fought for it,'' McCain told...

Democrats are realizing that winning the Hispanic vote is more critical than ever if they hope to carry Nevada in November. And so as Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin rallied supporters in Carson City on Saturday, Democrats were redoubling their outreach efforts to Latinos. To point: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson gathered with local Hispanic leaders for a discussion on the economy at the College of Southern Nevada before setting off to canvass, attend a Telemundo soccer tournament and deliver remarks at the Clark County Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner. The visit was one in a series of recent actions...

New McCain ad blames Obama and Democrats for death of immigration overhaul effort.(CNN) – John McCain’s campaign is running a Spanish language ad in battleground states that blames Barack Obama and Senate Democrats for the failure of attempts to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws — even though the Republican nominee and his Democratic counterpart cast identical votes in the key Senate showdowns on that issue last year “Obama and his congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants. But are they?” asks the announcer in the 30-second spot, “Which Side Are They On?” “The press reports that their...

ARLINGTON, Va., Sept. 12 /Standard Newswire/ -- Today, McCain-Palin 2008 released its latest Spanish television ad, entitled "Which Side Are They On?" The ad highlights Barack Obama's record of saying that he supports immigration reform but actually backing "poison pill" amendments meant to undermine the bipartisan compromise for reform. The ad will air in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. VIEW THE AD HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyKGHvRL2_U Direct link to adEnglish Script For "Which Side Are They On?" (TV:30) ANNCR: Obama and his Congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants. But are they? The press reports that their efforts were...

Two eye-catching things were buried in the new Census Bureau projection that, by 2042, America will no longer be a white man's country. One is that the proportion of African Americans also will fade, or at least not get much bigger. The other is that the number of Hispanics will soar, to about 30 percent of the nation's population. Not only will America not be a white majority country, but it will almost certainly be a bilingual nation. In many cities, Spanish will be as likely to be heard on the streets, in schools and workplaces as English. This seismic...

For years, Juan Hernandez was a familiar sight at Joe T. Garcia’s — strolling among diners and singing as a local troubadour. His work there led to singing at weddings and recording albums in Spanish and English. He earned enough money to pay for graduate school and learned lessons that would help him through the years, said his father, Francisco Hernandez Sr. "His years as a troubadour gave him so much time working with people," he said. "He learned to win the appreciation of people." That may have helped, as Juan Hernandez — a lightning rod because of his passionate...

In search of someone - anyone - on this planet who is not in love with Barack Obama, I am in the banquet hall of a Cuban restaurant in the Miami suburbs, and there are dozens of men and women around me and they are hollering "McCain! McCain! Sí McCain!" A man shouts out in Spanish that I am a political reporter from Canada visiting South Florida. He asks for a show of hands declaring presidential preference. The result: John McCain, about 50; Mr. Obama, two. And the room is just beginning to fill. Soon there will be 250 people...

Here is video of Sen. John McCain telling a group of Hispanic Veterans in Denver that, "Fortunately, Sen. Obama failed; not our military." McCain was speaking of Obama's attempts to block the Surge Strategy in Iraq, a failure in judgment McCain says he cannot conceive of in a Commander-in-Chief. . . . (see video)

Republican presidential candidate John McCain received a warm welcome and standing ovation from a Hispanic veterans group Friday as he sought to highlight his credentials to be the country's commander-in-chief. Speaking at Denver's Grand Hyatt hotel, McCain said he and rival Barack Obama faced a choice 18 months ago when the situation in Iraq had deteriorated. In prepared remarks, the Arizona senator called it a "real-time test for a future commander-in-chief. America passed that test." McCain advocated sending more troops to Iraq before the Bush Administration decided to follow that strategy. Obama has opposed it and said again this week...

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama has picked up support from nearly all the Hispanics who voted for his rival Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries, giving him a nearly 3-1 lead over John McCain, according to a new poll. Results of the Pew Hispanic Center survey show Obama with 66 percent of the Hispanic vote to McCain's 23 percent. The results represent a ''sharp reversal'' in Obama's fortunes from the primaries, when he lost the Latino vote to Clinton by nearly 2-1, prompting speculation that Hispanics were leery of voting for a black candidate, said Susan Minushkin, the center's deputy director....

ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign today announced that John McCain will speak at the 2008 American GI Forum of the United States National Convention on Friday, July 25th in Denver, Colorado.

John McCain is winning a paltry 23 percent of the Hispanic vote compared with 66 percent for Barack Obama, according to a large poll released Thursday by the Pew Hispanic Center. While Obama’s lead among Hispanics is not drastically ahead of where Democratic nominee John Kerry stood in the summer of 2004, McCain trails President Bush’s standing at this point four years ago. At that time, Pew found that Hispanics broke 62 percent for Kerry and 32 percent for Bush. Exit polls later found that Bush earned the support of about four in 10 Latino voters. That difference — from...

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Two-thirds of U.S. Hispanic voters support Democrat Barack Obama for president over Republican John McCain and the partisan gap among the United States' fastest growing voter bloc is broader than at any point this decade, a study found. The nationwide telephone survey by the Pew Hispanic Center released on Thursday said 66 percent of a sample of 2,015 registered Latino voters polled said they backed Obama, with 23 percent supporting McCain, a senator from Arizona. The survey said Obama's strong showing represented a sharp reversal in his fortunes from the primaries "when he lost the Latino vote...

As the battle between John McCain and Barack Obama for Hispanic votes heats up, it raises the question of what relates better, an immigrant father or an absentee father? For Obama, the answer is an absentee father. This morning Obama's campaign e-mailed reporters the script for his first Spanish-language radio ad of the general election, designed to portray him as sharing the same experiences as many Latino voters, and it included these lines: "His father was an immigrant. His mother from a humble, middle class family. Through student loans and hard work, he graduated from college. Obama never pulled people...

As Oppenheimer writes in this piece, "There is a fierce behind-the-scenes battle for influence over presumptive Democratic candidate Barack Obama's Hispanic and Latin American agenda, and some Democratic strategists say that its outcome could determine the result of the November elections." "Some Obama backers in South Florida, in particular, are especially miffed at what they see as excessive power by labor-union-tied, left-leaning Mexican-American leaders at Obama's Chicago headquarters over the campaign's nationwide Hispanic and Latin American policy strategies."

Although the nation's largest Latino advocacy organization is a nonprofit that must remain nonpartisan because it gets millions of U.S. federal grant dollars, the group's president helped lead a Barack Obama pep rally during an annual conference. The extremist Mexican group National Council of La Raza clearly endorses Obama, which is why La Raza President Janet Marguia stood by as Los Angeles' renowned Chicano Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa praised Obama during the group's annual convention in San Diego. Villaraigosa assured the crowd that Obama is LATINOS' BEST HOPE for reforming the nation's immigration policies. If that's not an endorsement, then what...

In their speeches this week to the National Council of La Raza, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain illustrated why the American public holds Congress — and politicians in general — in such low regard, particularly on the issue of illegal immigration.

SAN DIEGO — “I’m not taking a single Latino vote for granted,” Sen. Barack Obama promised thousands at the National Council of La Raza’s national conference here, July 13. To show his seriousness, right after Obama’s speech his campaign held a three-hour Latinos for Obama briefing for NCLR members where top-level Latino staff outlined the nuts and bolts of his Latino campaign strategy and answered in detail questions about his positions on key issues. Daniel Sepulveda, senior policy advisor on Obama’s Senate staff, said Obama's core commitments that he will not compromise are “ending the war in Iraq, providing health...

Obama Argues He's More Open-border Than McCain: "The 12 million people living in the shadows, communities taking immigration enforcement into their own hands...they're counting on us to stop the hateful rhetoric filling the airwaves. Yes, they broke the law and we should require them to learn English, pay a fine and go to the back of the line." CIS notes: These oft-repeated "penalties" are not serious. As for the fine, immigrant rights attorneys will cry discrimination and those aliens who don't pay it will never be deported. The English language requirement would be impossible to regulate and likely never enforced....

San Diego For many Latinos on hand for Barack Obama on Sunday, attraction to the Democratic presidential candidate went beyond policy issues to the matter of identity. "He's closer to our community," said immigrant Pietro Ferrari after hearing Obama address the National Council of La Raza at its conference in San Diego. "He gives me the sense of somebody who has emerged without privilege," said Ferrari. "He understands immigration first hand. And he understands the promise of being American." Obama was the first in the candidate line-up at the conference for La Raza – the country's largest advocacy group for...

John McCain set a difficult task for himself in his speech to the National Council of La Raza. He had to simultaneously reassure liberal Hispanic activists that he is a more reliable champion of comprehensive immigration reform -- otherwise known as amnesty -- than Barack Obama and convince conservatives that he is still committed to the enforcement-first position he took in the Republican primaries. All while denying that he has flip-flopped on immigration. In substance, his immigration remarks offered something for everyone. He explained his revised position. "Many Americans did not believe us when we said we would secure our...

Politics: Barack Obama tells "The Race" that U.S. law enforcement officers are terrorists and that communities that enforce immigration laws are vigilantes. But then, that's exactly what La Raza believes.Obama, the "post-racial" candidate, pandered Sunday to a group of Hispanic activists that calls itself "The Race." The only thing that was missing at the convention of the National Council of La Raza was his wearing a Mexican flag lapel pin. In Orwellian fashion, defenders of "La Raza" deny that it means "the race." San Francisco Chronicle writer Carla Marinucci says of Obama's appearance before the group's national convention in San...

<p>An interesting and surprising little thing happened Sunday while Barack Obama was speaking (in English) to the National Council of La Raza in San Diego.</p> <p>It was, according to The Times' Louise Roug, a fairly standard Obama stump speech before the crowd of more than 2,000 members in the Convention Center, where the Republican Party nominated Sen. Bob Dole 12 years ago.</p>

Despite having failed to achieve immigration reform in the Senate, John McCain told the nation’s largest Hispanic advocacy group he would “fix our broken borders.” “Many Americans, with good cause, did not believe us when we said we would secure our borders, and so we failed in our efforts,” McCain said at the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) annual convention today. “We must prove to them that we can and will secure our borders first, while respecting the dignity and rights of citizens and legal residents of the United States.” McCain said it was important to “recognize the...

Speaking at the National Council of La Raza conference today, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) engaged in a lively give-and-take with several Latino activists who questioned his stance on illegal immigration. In one heated exchange with an audience member, a questioner asked McCain whether he, like presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama (Ill.), would make immigration reform a top priority as president and provide a pathway to citizenship for 12 million undocumented workers living illegally in the U.S. as part of a single immigration bill. McCain responded by defending his record on immigration against Obama's, saying the Democrat took his lead from...

...A new poll shows that 82% of Hispanics consider education as one of three most important issues facing this country. The survey also shows that, even while Hispanics trust Democrats over Republicans on education by more than a two-to-one margin, that ratio could change if Republicans heavily promote school choice while Democrats oppose it.... ...This survey found that although Hispanic voters generally consider public schools to be effective...Fifty-two percent of Hispanic voters have a favorable view of school choice, according to the poll, while only 7% had an unfavorable view. When asked about vouchers specifically, 32% expressed a favorable opinion...

Yesterday, Sen. John McCain stood strong for Secure Borders when he responded to a question from radical LaRaza activist Enrique Morones: Morones, a member of Borders Angels, accused the US of killing ten thousand people on the border with our “militarization” and demanded that McCain disavow border security. McCain gave him a very testy reply.Listen to audio . . . .

Education is slipping in priority among many voters but not among Hispanics, many of whom see school choice as a deciding factor in whom to vote for this fall. This has implications for the presidential election. A new poll shows that 82% of Hispanics consider education as one of three most important issues facing this country. The survey also shows that, even while Hispanics trust Democrats over Republicans on education by more than a two-to-one margin, that ratio could change if Republicans heavily promote school choice while Democrats oppose it. The poll was conducted last year among more than 800...

John McCain on Monday asked Latinos to trust him on the thorny issue of how to treat the nation's illegal immigrants, a day after Barack Obama accused the Arizona senator of backing away from his a key position for fear of alienating GOP conservatives. Far behind in polls that show Obama leading 2 to 1 among Latino voters, a feisty McCain spoke to the National Council of La Raza a day after the Illinois senator, and said he intends to make comprehensive immigration reform a top priority if elected. But disappointing some at the Latino civil rights gathering, he said...

Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama today speaking to the National Council of La Raza in San Diego promised amnesty for the more than 12 million illegal immigrants that are living in the United States. Here's a bit of what Obama had to say: "Yes, they broke the law. And we should not excuse that. We should require them to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for citizenship - behind those who came here legally. But we cannot - and should not - deport 12 million people. " Obama went on to say: "That's...

SAN DIEGO – Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Monday vigorously disputed his opponent's assertion that he had backed away from his own comprehensive plan to overhaul the nation's immigration laws. “I do ask for your trust that when I say I remain committed to fair, practical and comprehensive immigration reform, I mean it,” the Arizona senator told the National Council of La Raza convention here. “I think I have earned that trust.” On Sunday, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, told the same group at the San Diego Convention Center that McCain backed off his...

July 14, 2008 ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain will deliver the following remarks as prepared for delivery to the 2008 National Council of La Raza Convention in San Diego, CA, today at 12:45 p.m. PT (3:45 p.m. ET): Thank you, Jane, for that kind introduction. Thank you, also to the leadership of the National Council of La Raza, and its board of directors. I'm very pleased to be with you again to discuss some of the issues in this campaign that most concern you. As you know, this isn't my first address to La Raza. I'm proud to...

Presidential Candidates Blame Each Other for Failed Immigration Reform Legislation Addressing the nation's largest Latino rights group today, Sen. John McCain will accuse Sen. Barack Obama of distorting his record and remind Latino voters that he championed immigration reform legislation that ultimately failed in Congress last year. McCain and Obama are locked in a fierce battle for Latino voters — a Democratic-leaning minority group that could have considerable influence in key battleground states this November. Obama leads McCain among Latinos by 30 percentage points, according to a recent Gallup poll, despite heavy support from Latinos for Sen. Hillary Clinton in...

"But I do ask for your trust that when I say, I remain committed to fair, practical and comprehensive immigration reform, I mean it. I think I have earned that trust." —John McCain

Sen. Barack Obama promised yesterday that he would make overhauling immigration policy a top priority of his first year in office if he is elected president as he chided Republican John McCain for backing away from his own comprehensive immigration bill. Obama addressed the four-day National Council of La Raza conference, which has attracted more than 20,000 people to the San Diego Convention Center. McCain, a senator from Arizona and the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting, will address the convention today. “I know Senator McCain used to buck his party on immigration in fighting for comprehensive reform, and I admired him for...