Thread: Latinos: Polite applause for McCain, standing O for obama

Tale of two speeches: Latino crowd gives polite applause to McCain, standing ovation to Obama
Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

(07-0 18:39 PDT Washington - -- Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has called on his Democratic rival Barack Obama to meet him face to face in town hall-style debates across the country. It was easy to see why today after the two gave competing speeches to crowd of prominent Latinos.

McCain, a four-term Arizona senator well known and respected by Hispanics, gave a stock economic speech repeated word for word from the day before. He won only polite applause.

Obama, largely an unknown among Latino votes only months ago, drew a standing ovation after delivering a rousing populist speech aimed directly at their core concerns - immigration, education and health care.

Lidia Pope, a Cuban American who lives in Virginia and works for the federal government, said she was leaning toward McCain before hearing Obama address the League of United Latin American Citizens. She said she would be listening to Obama very carefully, looking for specific plans and ideas. "This is not any old election," she said. "People are worried."

After hearing Obama, Pope was more than impressed. "He was so energetic," she said. "I think he understands the issues."

McCain finds himself pinched between his sponsorship of a major immigration overhaul that failed last year in the Senate and his need to disown his own immigration bill that was loathed in his party.

The legislation would have offered a path to citizenship for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. When the bill came up for a vote, McCain largely left the fight to others as he devoted his time to running for president. He finally said in a Republican debate this year that he would not vote for his own bill now but would work on border security first.

That left him today with a three-paragraph addendum to his speech, seemingly tacked on for his audience, where he addressed his admiration for the "patriotism, industry and decency" of the nation's Hispanic citizens and read over a line where he promised "to honor their contributions as long as I live."

Obama, who struggled to win Hispanics during the primaries and played a minor role in the immigration debates, said he had "reached across the aisle in the Senate to fight for comprehensive immigration reform." In fact, while Obama sponsored some amendments, he was not a key negotiator and mainly stuck to the party line. If anything, his amendments and others he supported undermined the fragile bipartisan coalition backing the bill.

His claim that he was deeply involved sends Republicans who were there into apoplexy. "Obama was consistently, absolutely AWOL" during negotiations over the bill, said Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, on a McCain campaign conference call.

A recent Gallup survey showed Obama making huge inroads into the Latino electorate, which gave an estimated 40 percent of its vote to President Bush in 2004. Republicans have long argued that their party has a natural appeal to Hispanics, the nation's largest and fastest growing minority group, who are mostly Catholic and culturally conservative with a strong entrepreneurial streak. McCain's outspoken support of citizenship for illegal workers and intimate familiarity with border issues in Arizona gave him a strong base to build on. Yet as of July 2, Obama was leading McCain 59 percent to 29 percent among Hispanic registered voters.

Obama promised to enact immigration reform by the end of his first term, and reminded the crowd today that he had backed controversial positions on immigration during the Democratic debates, referring to his support for giving drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants "when it was uncomfortable" to do so. Calling Hispanics an "aspirational community," he said there is no conflict between "excellence and diversity," touting his youthful work among poor minority groups in Chicago.

The election, he said, is "about making sure our government knows that when there's a Hispanic girl stuck in a crumbling school who graduates without learning to read or doesn't graduate at all, that isn't just a Hispanic-American problem. That's an American problem."

Cries of "si se puede" rang out from the crowd.

McCain aimed his appeal to the group on broad economic grounds, arguing that Obama's plans to raise taxes on the higher income brackets will hit small businesses hardest.

"Keeping individual rates low isn't intended as a favor to wealthy Americans," he said. "Twenty-three million small business owners pay those rates," including the two million small businesses estimated to be owned by Hispanics.

He promised to double the child tax deduction to $7,000 and lower the estate tax to 15 percent, while offering a $5,000 tax credit to help families buy health insurance. He said a health care mandate would prove "crushing" to small businesses. The lines all won applause, but it was mild.

Delia Navarez, a retired school teacher from San Gabriel, Calif., said she was impressed with McCain and "the way he explained about the taxes," saying she feels McCain is compassionate toward immigrants.

But said she is supporting Obama. "I just think Obama is a candidate of the people," Navarez said. "I think he respects people at the bottom. He worked his way up and knows what it's like to face a lot of hardships and obstacles. He has a lot of capacity to help minorities who are struggling to improve their lives."

E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead@sfchronicle.com.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 11LPD5.DTL

Cries of "si se puede" rang out from the crowd.

And they call themselves Americans?

Si, noi potere!!!!!

It appears it is time to be loyal to our ethnicity and not give a fig about being Americans. Then they call others bigots or racists, all the while, they are the racists. (Laaza!)