“Hillary holds the entire Latino community in the palm of her hand,” said. Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.), whose district went heavily for Clinton.
A vice president for the National Council of La Raza says:
...whether McCain can win over large enough numbers of Latino voters is “still an open question.” “But Latinos are brand-loyal, and after the Clinton brand, the McCain brand is the second-strongest among Latinos because of his military service and his immigration record,” Munoz said.
The clout of Latino/Hispanic voters is increasing. In California, they are 30% of all voters and in Texas, 32%.
While McCain beat Romney by only 4 points in Florida, he got 54% of the Latino vote in the Republican primary compared to Romney's 14%.
And many Republicans remember that it was in 2004 when 40 percent of Latino voters abandoned the Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry (Mass.), to vote for President Bush, Munoz said.
Munoz called 2004 the Democrats’ “low-water mark” in pulling in Latino support. The “high-water mark,” she said, came in 1996, the last time a Clinton was on the ticket.
Even Obama supporters in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus say Obama needs to step up his outreach:
And even longtime Obama backers in the CHC — including Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) — said that Obama has a lot of work to do in drumming up support among Latinos who are still fiercely loyal to Clinton.
“I have encouraged the [Obama] campaign for a year now that retail politics is very important to us, but they don’t yet seem to have gotten the message,” Gutierrez said. “We really need to see more of that from him.”
Turnout is key.
“We have a tendency to not go to the polls to vote,” Baca said. “[The CHC] can help get them out to vote, and it’ll make a big difference. But in the end it’s up to him.”
The group wants Obama to commit to putting immigration reform on his agenda for his first 100 days. Sounds pretty easy to me, but apparently Obama doesn't yet have such a plan:
Obama’s campaign coordinator for Spanish-language media, Vince Casillas, said that while Obama has promised to take up immigration reform in his first year in office, he has not yet laid out his detailed plan for comprehensive reform. “As soon as he’s ready and has a plan in place, he’ll announce it,” Casillas said.
