Posted on 06/01/2008 4:41:43 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Ken Vogel reports that the Clinton campaign is using the results to openly argue that Barack Obama has a problem with Hispanic voters — an idea Clinton backers have previously mentioned only behind the scenes.
“It was a 100 percent Hispanic primary and it shows that he has a problem with the Latino community,” Terry McAuliffe, campaign chairman for Hillary Clinton, told a handful of reporters after polls closed Sunday. “He cannot close in this key core constituency,” McAuliffe added.
Voters in Puerto Rico are in some ways different from Hispanics living stateside, both because there’s a long tradition of racial mixing and because elections here tend to center around the debate over whether the island should remain a commonwealth or become a state or an independent nation. They also don't vote in November.
Clinton has fared better than Obama with Hispanic voters in previous primaries. And her campaign has argued to superdelegates that she’d do better than Obama against presumptive GOP nominee in key states with large Hispanic populations.
CNN exit polls in Puerto Rico found a surprisingly high 31 percent of voters admitted the race of the candidates was important in their decision. Of those, 63 percent voted for Clinton and 37 percent for Obama.
“It helps make the case that we would not have to expend resources to win a natural Democratic constituency,” said Puerto Rico Senate president Kenneth D. McClintock, a Clinton co-chair and superdelegate. If Obama is the nominee, McClintock asserted that in order to win the Hispanic vote, Democrats “would have to divert resources that we would otherwise spend on other campaigns.”
But McAuliffe’s assertion Sunday that Obama has a Hispanic “problem” was more direct than any the campaign has made publicly to date.
In a conference call with Clinton campaign donors last month, the campaign’s liaison to superdelegates, Harold Ickes, asserted McCain has “very favorable standing with Hispanics because of his position on the immigration bill.”
Ickes said “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, and Hillary will. And she’s shown that in Texas and other states,” said Ickes. That will be key, Ickes said, “if we need to bring in some of the Southwestern states or even Florida, where there is a growing population of Puerto Ricans in addition to the Cubans in South Florida as well as older people.”
I have a feeling Terry doesn’t like his job right about now.
Whew...I’m glad this nomination isn’t about “race”.
Obamas problem is that he is a total poser
With Richardson as his VP pick, he will fix that problem.
Fixed for accuracy. Puerto Rico's election for all island-wide elective posts ARE in November.
He's got a white boy Christian gun owner problem too...
I hadn't thought of that. You have a good point. That would trump a female VP candidate.
Oh, and BTW, you did a nice job on that thread about the rules committee yesterday.
Barack and the democrat party are uniters!
They told me so.
Obambi also has a vast right wing paranoid conspiratorial old typical white guy, gun owning, freedom loving, America supporting, anti Islamofascist and anti socialist/left wing, anti traitor, pro Western civilization survival, kinda problem with me too.
Don’t forget he also has an ‘Asian’ problem. Clinton trounced him by 70% to 30% margin in CA where a significant Asian population exists.
What problems do Obama not have? He is an anti-american, covert muslism racist pig.
Maybe if Obama had let a bunch of Puerto Rican terrorists out of prison early (like Bill Clinton did with pardons in 1999), he would’ve fared better in LatinoLand.
Hillary’s campaign whines about media bias, but I haven’t heard a single person in the MSM ask Hillary about those FALN pardons, or about her brothers taking hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby Bubba for pardons, or the Rich pardon, or any of the other ridiculous pardons. And I also haven’t heard anybody in the MSM ask Hillary about Juanita Broaddrick, the woman Bill Clinton raped back in Arkansas. It’s one thing for Hillary to stand by her man. It’s another thing for Hillary to stand by her rapist.
Ain’t multiculturalism grand? And some people think that more multiculturalism will make it better.
Yes, but look on the positive side, Messiah Osama Hussein Obama has been endorsed by Al Qaeda, Hamas, Iran, and OBL. What more could Liberals ask for?
I suspect Obama is going to choose Bill Richardson as VP. I do love to hear how the left is coming apart at its race baiting seams. It is long overdue that they be exposed on the inherent racism in Democrat race based policies.
Actually he mainly has a problem with Latino terrorists (because the Clintons have that vote sewn up). I suspect Barry does well with ME terrorists.
Klintons’ fire last bullet in Obama’s corpse:
Tell another of their core group that you are being robbed by Obama. Poor Whites, Old Women and Hispanics - Obama has stolen this election from you.
See ya all in 2012.
Obama has all kinds of problems, the least of which is latinos.
Boney knees and Oscar Bonavena to you, too.
This spells big problems for Obama in NY, and to some extent CT and NJ. If our 527s can convince Jews to support McCain with close to 50%, and NY Latinos stay home, the election will be over very quickly on Nov 4th.
"I hadn't thought of that. You have a good point. That would trump a female VP candidate."
But then you'd have the problem of having the two least qualified candidates in history. Just a thought, does anyone think of the last scene in Redford's The Candidate when thinking of the haloed one?
Hellary and McVain are more likely to support either a general amnesty or some other bill that’s favorable to illegals than Obamarama will be. That, and the fact that Hispanics aren’t too keen on supporting “black” candidates...
Just as Pa. and Ky. showed he has a white middle-class problem.
He appeals to blacks and rich country-club liberals, and the intellectual anti-war nutroots liberals.
That got him caucus victories, even in states he would have lost the popular vote (does anybody really think Barack would have won the popular vote in Nevada? He lost the popular vote in Texas but one the Caucus vote.
Pimps and whores can't be too picky.
With Richardson as his VP pick, he will fix that problem.
And worsen his typical white person problem.
I’d like to inform Terry Hillary has a problem with the African American vote. What’s she getting Terry about 8%?
I think you’ve nailed it, and Richardson is the perfect dweeb for the job.
Obama pulls the Black vote, Richardson the Hispanic ....
“Say Goodbye, Harry”
I'll tell you exactly what it is: Blacks an Latinos hate each other. I have employed a number of both, and you wouldn't believe the animosity between them. Although, I think the black attitude is more of a reaction to the Latino hatred of them, from what I can tell.
The reality is that a huge amount of latinos will not vote for a black guy.
Thanks, that was my first breaking news thread and it’s still there:)
I live two doors away from a 'halfway house' for 'disadvantaged' teens. About three weeks ago, when I went jogging, I saw about five of them, four blacks and a hispanic. The blacks were standing around on a gravel driveway with the hispanic on his hands and knees between them. I don't think the hispanic was looking for his contacts or trying to impress the blacks by getting dirtied up there in the gravel.
True.
But few people expect the black population to defect in November from the Democrats aside from maybe the superdelegates in the Party believing that will occur.
Face it. They don’t have a record of being swing voters.
Hispanics do to a point. Whites certainly do. Name a race, religious affiliation or the targeted identity of your choice and just about everyone else has some claim to being more of a threat to leave the Dem plantation under the right circumstances.
This is why Hillary can make a stronger case that her voters are more likely to walk if Obama is the nominee, especially when they have a Liberal Republican to turn to.
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