{"id":15916,"date":"2008-06-18T12:40:20","date_gmt":"2008-06-18T16:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15916.html"},"modified":"2008-06-18T12:40:20","modified_gmt":"2008-06-18T16:40:20","slug":"there-is-a-candidate-with-a-latino-problem-but-its-not-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/there-is-a-candidate-with-a-latino-problem-but-its-not-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"There is a candidate with a Latino problem (but it’s not Obama)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just a few weeks ago, Barack Obama’s critics insisted that he “has a problem with the Latino community<\/a>,” a charge bolstered by exit polls showing him trailing Hillary Clinton among Hispanic-American voters. Indeed, one of Clinton’s top aides said John McCain has a “very favorable standing with Hispanics because of his position on the immigration bill…. So if Obama is against McCain in states where Hispanics are important, I’ll just tell you: he’s not going to be able to cut the mustard on that.”<\/p>\n

The good news is, Obama’s standing in the Latino community is quite strong. The better news is, Obama is even stronger than expected. The remarkable news is, Obama is even ahead in Florida, where Cuban-American voters have consistently voted Republican for the last four decades.<\/p>\n

Last week, an NBC\/WSJ poll<\/a> showed Obama leading McCain among Hispanics, 62% to 28%. It prompted MSNBC to note<\/a> yesterday, “It’s no longer fair to say that Obama has a problem with Latino voters; McCain does. This was a case of conventional wisdom that was never based on fact, just semi-informed speculation based on primary exit polling and bad stereotypes of Latinos.”<\/p>\n

But in case there were doubts about that poll, consider this one<\/a>. (thanks to dnA for the tip)<\/p>\n

A new national survey of Latino voters shows Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama with a nearly 3-to-1 advantage over his rival, Republican John McCain.<\/p>\n

The survey found that 60 percent of Latinos planned to vote for Obama, compared to 23 percent for McCain, while 16 percent were undecided. Latino Decisions, a joint effort between Pacific Market Research and University of Washington political scientists Matt Barreto and Gary Segura, conducted the poll by telephone June 1-12.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The poll found that Latino Dems preferred Hillary Clinton to Obama by 22 points, but in a general-election race, these same voters strongly prefer Obama to McCain.<\/p>\n

This is of particular significance in Florida.
\n
\nThe pollster added:<\/p>\n

Likewise, Obama does well among Latinos across many states. In California, he leads 66 percent to 20 percent; in New York, 65 percent to 20 percent; in Texas, 61 percent to 22 percent. Combining data in the four southwestern states expected to be key battlegrounds — New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada — Obama leads McCain 57 percent to 31 percent among Latino voters. In Florida, where about half of Latino voters are Cuban-American, Obama has 43 percent to McCain’s 42 percent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The results from the Sunshine State are especially encouraging given that Obama has taken a provocative message to South Florida: the U.S. policy towards Cuba hasn’t worked over the last half-century, and it’s time for a change<\/a>. There was some talk that the position would undermine Obama’s chances — the opposite appears to be true.<\/p>\n

McCain has a “very favorable standing with Hispanics because of his position on the immigration bill”? Not so much. Indeed, McCain abandoned his own position on immigration policy in order to win the Republican nomination, a fact that I’m sure did not go unnoticed in the Latino community.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure what McCain can do about this, short of trying to convince voters that he both supports and opposes his previous immigration policy at the same time — a trick McCain isn’t nimble enough to pull off.<\/p>\n

The media has been talking for months about the presidential candidate with a “Hispanic problem.” It turns out there is a candidate with this dilemma, just not the one the media identified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just a few weeks ago, Barack Obama’s critics insisted that he “has a problem with the Latino community,” a charge bolstered by exit polls showing him trailing Hillary Clinton among Hispanic-American voters. Indeed, one of Clinton’s top aides said John McCain has a “very favorable standing with Hispanics because of his position on the immigration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}