Democracy for New Mexico

Dems to Spend $20 Million to Mobilize Hispanic Voters

The Washington Post reports that the DNC and Obama are set to unveil a $20 million effort to register and mobilize Hispanic voters in a number of states, including New Mexico:

DNC Chairman Howard Dean said the sum is unprecedented for a presidential campaign and represents a show of Democratic confidence that Latino voters could prove pivotal in states including New Mexico and Michigan. [...]

Targets will include Florida; Western states such as Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico; and Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, industrial battlegrounds with sizable Hispanic populations. The money will be spent on niche advertising and other outreach, along with mobilization efforts aimed at identifying, registering and turning out new Democratic voters.

Over the weekend, the campaign held a training session in Las Vegas to teach local organizers how to canvass Hispanic communities. A similar forum will be held soon in Florida, Dean said, and sessions in other states are in the planning stages.

... The investment is intended to benefit other Democratic candidates as well, including high-profile House and Senate races in Colorado, New Mexico and Florida.

Meanwhile, McCain isn't doing so hot with Latino voters despite his campaign's claim that, "We've been doing all that," McCain spokeswoman Hessy Fernandez said of Obama's efforts.

Although Republican rival John McCain represents Arizona, a state with a strong Hispanic presence, Dean cited a poll last week by the Pew Hispanic Center showing Obama's approval rating with registered Latino voters at 66 percent nationwide, compared with 23 percent for McCain.

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Alex Flores Guest Blog: Latinos Strongly Prefer Obama

This is a guest blog by Alex Flores that was first posted at Alex on Politics. Alex is from Corrales, NM and will start work on a Master's at Princeton this Fall. A young Dem up and comer, he currently serves on the Platform and Resolutions Committee of the Democratic Party of New Mexico.

Good news for New Mexico and for Democrats across the country! A new Pew Hispanic Center Poll was released this morning with the good news about Latino voters we've been waiting to hear. If current trends hold or strengthen, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado will likely turn blue in November. Further, in Southern Florida, where Joe Garcia is running a tough race against Mario Diaz-Balart and in Texas, where Rick Noriega is in striking distance of the US Senate seat, we have a chance to take elections never before thought possible.

According to a nationwide survey of 2,015 Latinos in June and July, registered Latino voters support Barack Obama for President over Republic John McCain by 66%-23%! The results confirm what could only be speculated on by some confident Obama supporters during the contentious primary race earlier this year: despite Obama's difficulties with Latinos against Senator Hillary Clinton, Latinos would support his candidacy strongly over Senator John McCain.

Although Clinton won by more than 2-1 in the Primaries, and despite the problem's inflation by the mainstream media, it is evident now more than ever that Latinos identify with the Democratic Party. Additionally, the new numbers show a large number of Latinos are disaffected with Senator Clinton after a bitter defeat and prolonged campaign.

Since 2004, when President Bush claimed the largest block of Latino voters by any Republican Presidential Nominee in history, Latinos have trended towards Democrats more and more. In 2006, Latinos turned out at a rate of 40% of registrants and trended +39 Democratic. If the Pew poll is at all accurate, the new margin is +43 with much larger rates of participation nationwide. This new poll also shows that they are more than willing to vote a black man into office.

Here are the rest of the numbers:

Three times as many respondents said being black would help Obama (32%) with Latino voters than said it would hurt him (11%); the majority (53%) said his race would make no difference to Latino voters.

Obama is rated favorably by 76% of Latino registered voters, making him much more popular among that voting group than McCain (44% favorable) and President Bush (27% favorable).

Hillary Clinton's ratings among Latino registered voters are 73% favorable and 24% unfavorable; Obama's are 76% favorable and 17% unfavorable.

Also, more than three-quarters of Latinos who reported that they voted for Clinton in the primaries now say they are inclined to vote for Obama in the fall election, while just 8% say they are inclined to vote for McCain. That means that Obama is doing better among Hispanics who supported Clinton than he is among non-Hispanic white Clinton supporters, 70% of whom now say they have transferred their allegiance to Obama while 18% say they plan to vote for McCain, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

Latino registered voters rank education, the cost of living, jobs and health care as the most important issues in the fall campaign, with crime lagging a bit behind those four and the war in Iraq and immigration still farther behind. On each of these seven issues, Obama is strongly favored over McCain--by lopsided ratios ranging from about three-to-one on education, jobs, health care, the cost of living and immigration, to about two-to-one on Iraq and crime.

In addition to their strong support for Obama, Latino voters have moved sharply into the Democratic camp in the past two years, reversing a pro-GOP tide that had been evident among Latinos earlier in the decade. Some 65% of Latino registered voters now say they identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with just 26% who identify with or lean toward the GOP. This 39 percentage point Democratic Party identification edge is larger than it has been at any time this decade; as recently as 2006, the partisan gap was just 21 percentage points.

This is a guest blog by Alex Flores of Corrales. Alex graduated from The George Washington University in Washington DC in the spring of 2008 with a degree in Public Policy. In the fall, he's moving to New Jersey to earn a Master’s Degree in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. This summer he's finishing two and a half years of work in the Political Department at People For the American Way (PFAW). Alex is active in local and national politics, and hes' one of the youngest ever appointed voting members of the Democratic Party of New Mexico’s Platform and Resolutions Committee.

If you'd like to submit a post for consideration as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me button in the upper left-hand corner of the page.

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Obama to Air New Spanish Language Radio Ad in NM, 3 Other States

On the heels of Obama’s speeches at the LULAC (see video) and NCLR (see video) conventions, the campaign today released a Spanish language radio ad entitled "Nuestro Propio Camino," which profiles the Senator's upbringing and connection to Hispanic values. The ad will air here in New Mexico, as well as in Colorado, Florida and Nevada. You can listen to it here. The English translation is below the break.

“Latinos can relate to Senator Obama’s background of hard work and commitment to family and community,” said Federico Pena, National Campaign Co-Chair, in a statement. “Senator Obama is serious about winning the Latino vote and this Spanish language ad is but one among a variety of his efforts to build on the progress of the primary.”

Nuestro Propio Camino

[Voice Over:] Some people have power and connections.

But most of us have to make our own way through life.

This is true even for the man who could become the next President ... Barack Obama.

He grew up without a father – raised by his mother with the support of his grandparents.

Obama never forgot his roots ....

He worked with churches to help families get job training and after-school care for their children.

In the State Senate, he passed a law that helped reduce the welfare roles by over 80% by helping families to secure jobs.

And despite the political pressure, Obama has stood with us for immigration reform and spoke out for our veterans.

It’s time we had a President who understands we all deserve a chance to make our own way.

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Two Fun Events in ABQ on June 14

From the DPBC eNews: Two events on Saturday, June 14, provide a wonderful opportunity for Bernalillo County Democrats to demonstrate their support, and have fun in the process:

"Juneteenth," celebrating the day news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached Galveston, Texas, in 1865, will be celebrated from noon to 6 PM at  Kirtland Park and Thomas Bell Community Center (3001 University  SE). The County party will have a voter registration and candidate literature table at the event. Some of our candidates will be there, and there will be lots of food, games for the kids, music, and storytelling activities. Come on out! More info.

"Live, Love, Be" is the theme of this year's Albuquerque Pride, celebrating 32 years of the gay,lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community. The Bernalillo County Democratic Party will have a float in the morning Pride Parade, and the state party will have a booth at the Pridefest festival following at EXPO NM (Fairgrounds). Come watch the parade (leaves Girard and Central at 10 AM and proceeds up Central to the Fairgrounds) and visit the Pridefest after! More info.

Any one who wants to help decorate the float on Friday, June 13, please call Cheryl Harris, 321-7678 or cherylannharris@comcast.net

The Democratic Party supports equality for all citizens and the protection of our civil liberties.

Click for Santa Fe Pride events.

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Clinton Implies Working, Hard-Working Americans = White Americans

I guess in Hillary's world, where she still has a chance to win the presidential nomination, only White Americans are working Americans or hard working Americans. According to a report in USA Today:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

Click to listen to her comments to a USA Today reporter.

Clinton's blunt and demeaning remarks are getting widely criticized in no uncertain terms, as such comments should be at any time in any campaign -- but especially as her sorry campaign for president slides into oblivion. For instance, Pam's Blend says Clinton is "race baiting" and deems her comments "inflammatory" and Oliver Willis writes, "Congratulations, Hillary Clinton, you win the prize for the first Democratic Bigot Eruption since I’ve been keeping track of this."

Mike Barnicle makes it even plainer by writing:

Now, faced with a mathematical mountain climb that even Stephen Hawking could not ascend, the Clintons -- and it is indeed both of them -- are just about to paste a bumper sticker on the rear of the collapsing vehicle that carries her campaign. It reads: VOTE WHITE.

Speculation has been widespread that Clinton would finish the campaign on a high note, going easy on the presumptive Dem nominee. Apparently not.

Instead, Hillary seems to be resorting to the worst kind of racial politics, basically framing African-American voters as unnecessary to her cause and lumping them all together into one homogeneous, problematic demographic viewed as The Blacks. This is something we might expect from certain Klan-friendly Republicans, but from someone who claims to represent the Democratic Party mainstream?

Hillary's comments mirror surrogate Paul Begala's gurglings during a heated exchange on TV with Donna Brazile on the evening of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries in which he stated that "we cannot win with eggheads and African-Americans." Everyone knows, of course, that there are no black- or brown-skinned eggheads. Or hard working Americans who happen to be black, brown or something in between.

Also note the implication that a majority of white working class voters support Clinton because they won't vote for an African-American candidate. I wonder how Hillary knows that all the votes she's gotten from that slice and dice are due to her being white -- and that these Dems would refuse to vote for Obama in the general election because he's not. Such framing is clearly insulting to both white and non-white voters, isn't it? It suggests that we all base our votes primarily on race, not issues or other factors. But then what do I know, I'm one of those "eggheads" I guess, not a "hard working American."

How low can the Clinton campaign go? I hope that question is on the minds of all the undecided superdelegates, as well as those who have previously endorsed Clinton. Is this the kind of campaigning we want to see among Democrats, or Americans for that matter?

What's ironic is that Hillary's husband failed to win the "white vote":

According to CNN's 1996 exit poll, Bill Clinton lost the white vote (Dole 46%, Clinton 43%, Perot 9%). He lost the white male vote by an even larger margin (Dole 49%, Clinton 38%, Perot 11%). And he lost gun owners badly (Dole 51%, Clinton 38%, Perot 10%). However, Clinton won the popular vote overall 49%-41%-8%, and he won 70% of the electoral votes.

In 2000 -- when Al Gore won the popular vote by half a million votes -- he lost white males to Bush by a whopping 60%-36%, according to CNN's exit poll. He lost men overall 53%-42%. He lost whites overall 54%-42%. He lost gun owners 61%-36%. He lost small-town voters 59%-38% and rural voters 59%-37%. He lost the Midwest overall 49%-48%.

She knows that, but at this point in her desperation she apparently doesn't care.

Technorati Tags:Hillary Clinton, race, USA Today, white voters, African-Americans, Democrats

Women's Voices Women Vote Behind Robocall Scam in NC

I wonder if the TV cable squawkers and the editorial board complainers will spend one one-hundredth of the time they've spent on the Wright "crisis" on this scandal. Turns out the Dem-leaning, non-profit group Women's Voices Women Vote has now admitted conducting an unethical and probably illegal anonymous robocall campaign in North Carolina that's clearly aimed at confusing potential primary voters who might be expected to support Obama. Note that former White House Chief of Staff for the Clinton administration, John Podesta, is on the group's board. Make of that what you will.

As the post states,

N.C. residents have reported receiving peculiar automated calls from someone claiming to be "Lamont Williams." The caller says that a "voter registration packet" is coming in the mail, and the recipient can sign it and mail it back to be registered to vote. No other information is provided.

The call is deceptive because the deadline has already passed for mail-in registrations for North Carolina's May 6 primary. Also, many who have received the calls -- like Kevin Farmer in Durham, who made a tape of the call that is available here -- are already registered. The call's suggestion that they're not registered has caused widespread confusion and drawn hundreds of complaints, including many from African-American voters who received the calls.

According to a story in the Raleigh News and Observer,

Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina, said in a news release that the calls were being made to African American households. The good government watchdog posted audio of the call.

"This is another in a long line of deceptive practices used in North Carolina and elsewhere that particularly target African-American voters," Hall said. "In our view, this phone message plainly violates North Carolina law. We ask the Attorney General, State Bureau of Investigation, and the State Board of Elections to investigate, expose, and prosecute the sponsors of these calls."

The robocall scandal comes on the heels of accusations that the person who orchestrated Rev. Wright's appearance at the Washington Press Club was Clinton supporter Rev. Barbara Reynolds, a reporter and member of the Club. A post on Reynolds' blog praising the Clinton campaign was recently deleted, although its contents have been recovered via a cache version of the post. The president of the Press Club has denied that there were any political motives involved in the booking of Wright.

Technorati Tags:Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Women's Voices Women Vote, John Podesta, Jeremiah Wright, robocalls, North Carolina, primaries, Democrats, Barbara Reynolds

McCain's Lobbyist Campaign Manager Wows the Crowd at Tamaya

UPDATE: Also see Ali's post at Clearly New Mexico for her take on the meeting and a video clip.
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McCain campaign manager Rick Davis at GOP meeting
in Bernalillo, New Mexico today

Not really, but he probably thinks he did. Republican lobbyists like Rick Davis who have ties to both the telecom industry and Ukrainian/Russian oligarchs are like that. They're used to getting attention and they're used to getting their way. Surprised that alleged "ethical reformer" and "maverick" John McCain has a lobbyist running his campaign? You shouldn't be. His campaign staff is loaded with them.

Words and actions are apparently two different things in McCain's world. Tell the people what they want to hear and then do what your corporate masters dictate to maximize profits. It's the oldest game in the book, and it's used unsparingly by our oldest presidential candidate.

Liberals!
Davis spoke today at the confab of GOP state party chairs and RNC bigwigs that's underway at the pricey Hyatt Regency Tamaya out at Santa Ana Pueblo near Bernalillo. Besides predicting victories and trying to convince his fellow Repubs that all is well in right-wing electionland this year, Lobbyist Davis pulled out this chart to try and impress the troops:

No, your eyes aren't fooling you -- there's a dirty word in plain sight on that humongous chart. LIBERAL! Davis must have thought he was very clever, showing how the percentage of Americans who identify Obama and Clinton as LIBERAL has been climbing. As if that's a bad thing or, as the chart claims, that our Dem prez candidates are "well to the left of the American electorate."

I guess it all depends on how you define LIBERAL and LEFT. Davis might be surprised to learn that polling continually shows that the majority of Americans agree with the core values held by LIBERALS. They're strongly for ending the quagmire in Iraq. They're demanding universal health care in no uncertain terms, and schools that turn out well-rounded, articulate human beings rather than test automatons. They want greedy, bottom-line obsessed financial institutions and corporations reined in to serve humans instead of the other way around. They want to be paid a living wage. They want to switch to renewable energy and clean up the environment. They want unrigged justice and a level playing field for all. And they want to keep the lobbyists like Davis as far from the political process as possible.

Mr. Lobbyist
Just who is McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis and what does he do for a living? Christy Hardin Smith of Firedoglake and Huffington Post offers some tasty tidbits:

-- Rick Davis arranged a cocktail meet and greet with McCain and a Russian businessman, Oleg Deripaska, so controversial that the US has revoked his visa -- at an economic conference in Switzerland. Davis' lobbying firm was trying to secure business with the Russian at the time, while the firm was already representing a competing political interest in Ukraine.

-- Mr. Davis, while working with the McCain 2008 campaign, also managed to procure a fat internet services contract from the campaign and kept lobbying for clients whose interests were opposed to McCain's own policy pronouncements.

--It seems that Davis has quite a few money-scandal skeletons in his closet:

Davis is a particularly easy target, having several money-related scandals in his background. A veteran of the Reagan administration, Davis ran McCain's presidential bid six years ago. He also founded a lobbying firm -- Davis, Manafort Inc. -- which has made at least $2.8 million lobbying Congress since 1998.

Over the past eight years, Davis' two roles often overlapped. In 1999, while he was McCain's campaign manager, his firm represented SBC Communications Inc. and Comsat Corp. At that time, both communications companies had controversial mergers pending at the Federal Communications Commission. The Senate Commerce Committee has legislative authority over the FCC, and McCain was chairman of that committee. Both mergers were eventually approved....

There's lots more on Davis, and other lobbyists who work for McCain, but you get the idea. Mr. Straight Talk's campaign is run by a prominent Crooked Talker.

McCain Attempts Mea Culpa
And where was McCain today -- on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.? Trying to make amends for his history of colluding with the equality-impraired -- and battling against the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday -- by speaking at the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. Where he got booed, rained on and hassled. He also dissembled to the press about his dismal civil rights record, and became irritated when pressed. But at least he's not LIBERAL.

Obama 40 Years Down the Road: Let's Bend That Arc ...

Video of entire speech. Here's the full text.

You know, Dr. King once said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but that it bends toward justice. But what he also knew was that it doesn't bend on its own. It bends because each of us puts our hands on that arc and bends it in the direction of justice.

So on this day – of all days –
let's each do our part to bend that arc. 

Let's bend that arc toward justice.
Let's bend that arc toward opportunity.
Let's bend that arc toward prosperity for all.

And if we can do that and march together – as one nation, and one people – then we won't just be keeping faith with what Dr. King lived and died for, we'll be making real the words of Amos that he invoked so often, and "let justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Exactly one year before his assassination, on April 4, 1967, King gave his Beyond Vietnam speech at Riverside Church in New York City. He said: “A few years ago, there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”

Sound familiar?

Commemorating Dr. King: Green Jobs Can Create Pathways Out of Poverty

From NMYO: April 4 marks the 40th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. To commemorate the event, staff and volunteers from New Mexico Youth Organized (NMYO) will travel to Memphis, TN this weekend for the Dream Reborn conference. Dream Reborn is an effort to honor the legacy of Dr. King by simultaneously addressing the issues of climate change, job creation and civil rights. 

NMYO Executive Director Keegan King explained, "Green jobs-blue collar jobs in green sectors of the economy-can create pathways out of poverty for young people. This goes to the core of Dr. King's teachings about equality for all. By providing job training for such things as solar panel installation, manufacturing, water treatment, recycling and sustainable agriculture, we can develop promising career paths right here in Albuquerque."

Over the weekend, NMYO and thousands of others will delve deeper into the concepts behind green jobs and their connection to civil rights, as well as how to get training programs started in cities across the country.

For more information about New Mexico Youth Organized and their campaign to promote green jobs,  check out their video above or 1SkyNewMexico.org.

Microcosm: What It's All About

In the Bronx