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WASHINGTON: Barack Obama’s presidential campaign
has recently increased its efforts to reach Latino voters by
appointing two veteran operatives to key outreach positions.
During the Democratic Party
primary, rival Hillary Clinton attracted more than two-thirds of the
Latino, or Hispanic, vote, making it brutally clear that Obama has
problems winning over the community.
After Obama’s crushing defeat
in the June 1 primary in Puerto Rico, Clinton’s campaign chairman
Terry McAuliffe told reporters the results “shows that he (Obama)
has a problem with the Latino community,” the Politico website
reported.
The Hispanic community—45
million people, or 15 percent of the US population—is the largest
racial minority group in the country. Many live in states expected
to be hotly contested in the November 4 presidential election.
In a bid to reach Hispanic
voters, Obama on Monday appointed Patti Solis Doyle, a Chicagoan of
Mexican descent, to be chief of staff to his still-to-be-named vice
presidential choice.
Solis managed Clinton’s
campaign until she was ousted in February amid a wave of acrimony
following the New York senator’s less-than-stellar showing on
February 5, the Super Tuesday primary night.
In a less visible but equally
important move, Obama appointed Cuauthemoc Figueroa, a
California-born former union organizer and the son of Mexican
farmworkers, as the point man in his effort to attract Hispanic
votes.
Obama’s campaign “has been
moving the pieces in a positive way over the last weeks” in an
effort to attract Hispanic voters, said Sergio Bendixen, a former
Clinton campaign adviser on Hispanic issues.
“In the primaries, Obama spent
a lot of money campaigning for Hispanic votes, but he had little
experience with the community,” Bendixen told Agence France-Presse.
“No offense, but his Latino
outreach team was a bit limited. Now, however, the indications are
that this is going to change,” he said.
Millions of Hispanic voters live
in the key battleground states of New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and
Florida, as well as Republican John McCain’s home state of
Arizona.
Whoever gains their support could
carry the state, said Daniel Restrepo from the Center for American
Progress, a think-tank with close ties to the Democrats.
--AFP
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