Clinton courting Nevada Latinos to win California

News Day ^ | January 13, 2008 | LETTA TAYLER AND GLENN THRUSH

[yoe]

Hillary Clinton was hugging babies and posing with grandmas while canvassing door-to-door in a working-class Hispanic neighborhood one evening when a man in a checked flannel shirt and wool cap waved her into his pocket-sized yard.

"You are going to win!" Jose Velasco, 47, a porter in the Mirage casino who is bucking his own union's endorsement of Barack Obama to support Clinton, said last week.

"I will, with your help," she replied with a wide grin.

Hispanics make up only between 12 and 15 percent of Nevada's Democratic electorate, but Clinton has spent virtually all of her time since New Hampshire courting the state's Mexican, Cuban, Central American and Puerto Rican populations.

Five of seven public appearances during Clinton's three-day swing through California and Nevada that ended yesterday were geared toward Hispanic voters. A sixth stop, to plug her proposed $70 billion economic stimulus package, also courted that group. A seventh was held at a Mexican restaurant.

A big part of Clinton's push is aimed at undermining Velasco's union - the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Local 226 - by appealing directly to its membership of dishwashers, busboys and other casino-industry food workers, which is nearly 40 percent Latino.

[snip] But Clinton is also gunning for a bigger prize, using her Hispanic targeting campaign in Nevada as a steppingstone to woo California's huge, highly politicized Spanish-speaking population, which represents nearly a quarter of that state's electorate.

[snip] "We must have a voice in the elections," Cisneros said in Spanish. "And Hillary is that voice."

[yoe]

The Senator's eight years in the White House and time in the Senate have produced little to nothing for those Hispanics already here except to allow them not to speak English and absolutely nothing to stem the flow if illegal immigrants. Her promises now are all political rhetoric/blather.

[Edit35]

sHrillary is quickly trying to develop a “Spanish” accent because the African American base is abandoning her in droves.

Watch for the Dora the Explora references over the next two weeks.

[mtbopfuyn]

ICE should be standing outside polling places.... on second thought they can’t find an illegal in a Mexican protest parade.

[rod1]

Ya think.and thta’s new to News Day?...Holy Guacamole (and chips)!

[nj26]

“The Senator’s eight years in the White House and time in the Senate have produced little to nothing for those Hispanics already here except to allow them not to speak English and absolutely nothing to stem the flow if illegal immigrants. Her promises now are all political rhetoric/blather.”

Yes, but recall her campaign commercial with the Christmas list (”universal pre-K, universal health care, etc”). Those freebies are valuable. And if she returns to her $1,000 “baby bond”, that’s $1,000 per anchor baby, as well.

Her campaign message is very clear: she is wiling to buy the votes of lower-income Americans by promising government freebies.

[originalbuckeye]

‘She is willing to buy the votes of lower-income Americans by offering government freebies’

Isn’t that how the Democrats have risen in power anyway? For years they have been selling out the middle class to gain votes from all those who want a free ride. Now that underclass is the poor Latinos.