Denver Post: As President Barack Obama's re-election campaign launched what it calls the "largest-ever national effort" to engage Latino voters, Republicans in Colorado and across the country signaled they will fight to gain ground among the traditionally Democratic and critical voting bloc.
They know it's an uphill battle. In 2008, Obama won 67 percent of the Latino vote, compared with 31 percent for Sen. John McCain. Recent polls show Obama with an advantage of between 67 percent and 70 percent over the presumptive Republican nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
"We will work to do much better," Colorado Republican Party chairman Ryan Call said.
Typically, Call said, the party's heaviest push to attract Latino voters comes later in the election cycle.
This year, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus announced a "dramatic expansion" in January of Latino outreach activities, including new staffers and a social-media strategy.
And just before the Democrats launched Spanish-language radio and TV ads as part of the Latinos for Obama effort, the RNC deployed state directors for Latino outreach in three states, including Colorado.
It plans to add directors in Virginia, North Carolina and New Mexico by the end of the month.
"We aren't waiting," Call said. "We know how important this constituency is."
The Obama ads that began running last week focus on education, particularly the growth in funding for HeadStart and Pell grants -- programs that benefit large numbers of Latinos. One features a campaign organizer from Denver who graduated from Harvard University. She talks about how financial aid helped her become the first person in her family to graduate from college.
At hundreds of "house parties" and other events across the nation geared toward Latinos, the campaign also is touting the consecutive months of job growth under Obama, and a health care bill that provides coverage even for people with pre-existing conditions.
And campaign officials point often to two statements Romney made this primary season that could be particularly damaging with Latinos: that as president he would veto the DREAM Act -- which would give illegal-immigrant children who graduate from high school a chance at legal residency, making it easier for them to attend college -- and that Arizona's approach to immigration, seen by some as discriminatory and anti-immigrant, is "a model" for the country.
"In this election, what the president has done and will do versus what Gov. Romney has done and will do is a clear choice for Latinos in this county, and that choice is overwhelmingly for Barack Obama," U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of Florida, a co-chairman of the Obama campaign, said last week.
Alexandra Franceschi, a Latino press secretary for the RNC, said that while it's important to address the issue of immigration, the topic that's foremost on voters' minds is the economy. That's particularly true for Latinos, who have been hit hard by the economic crisis.
"At the end of the day, Latinos, just like everyone else, are going to vote for the nominee who is going to make it so I have economic security, so I have a job," she said. "The Republican message is economic security, small businesses and lower taxes -- things that are really going to resonate in the Latino community."
"We do think we can do a great job this cycle," she said.
But as 20-year-old Dominique Barrera walks neighborhoods and makes phone calls for Obama -- as he has done four to five hours a day, three or four days a week since January -- he's hearing a different sentiment. Given a choice between the president and Romney, he said, the people with whom he's speaking don't equivocate.
Obama, he said, "is for Latinos."
They know it's an uphill battle. In 2008, Obama won 67 percent of the Latino vote, compared with 31 percent for Sen. John McCain. Recent polls show Obama with an advantage of between 67 percent and 70 percent over the presumptive Republican nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
"We will work to do much better," Colorado Republican Party chairman Ryan Call said.
Typically, Call said, the party's heaviest push to attract Latino voters comes later in the election cycle.
This year, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus announced a "dramatic expansion" in January of Latino outreach activities, including new staffers and a social-media strategy.
And just before the Democrats launched Spanish-language radio and TV ads as part of the Latinos for Obama effort, the RNC deployed state directors for Latino outreach in three states, including Colorado.
It plans to add directors in Virginia, North Carolina and New Mexico by the end of the month.
"We aren't waiting," Call said. "We know how important this constituency is."
The Obama ads that began running last week focus on education, particularly the growth in funding for HeadStart and Pell grants -- programs that benefit large numbers of Latinos. One features a campaign organizer from Denver who graduated from Harvard University. She talks about how financial aid helped her become the first person in her family to graduate from college.
At hundreds of "house parties" and other events across the nation geared toward Latinos, the campaign also is touting the consecutive months of job growth under Obama, and a health care bill that provides coverage even for people with pre-existing conditions.
And campaign officials point often to two statements Romney made this primary season that could be particularly damaging with Latinos: that as president he would veto the DREAM Act -- which would give illegal-immigrant children who graduate from high school a chance at legal residency, making it easier for them to attend college -- and that Arizona's approach to immigration, seen by some as discriminatory and anti-immigrant, is "a model" for the country.
"In this election, what the president has done and will do versus what Gov. Romney has done and will do is a clear choice for Latinos in this county, and that choice is overwhelmingly for Barack Obama," U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of Florida, a co-chairman of the Obama campaign, said last week.
Alexandra Franceschi, a Latino press secretary for the RNC, said that while it's important to address the issue of immigration, the topic that's foremost on voters' minds is the economy. That's particularly true for Latinos, who have been hit hard by the economic crisis.
"At the end of the day, Latinos, just like everyone else, are going to vote for the nominee who is going to make it so I have economic security, so I have a job," she said. "The Republican message is economic security, small businesses and lower taxes -- things that are really going to resonate in the Latino community."
"We do think we can do a great job this cycle," she said.
But as 20-year-old Dominique Barrera walks neighborhoods and makes phone calls for Obama -- as he has done four to five hours a day, three or four days a week since January -- he's hearing a different sentiment. Given a choice between the president and Romney, he said, the people with whom he's speaking don't equivocate.
Obama, he said, "is for Latinos."
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