Candidate Address NALEO, McCain Tells Hispanics: "You Can Trust Me"

Senators and presumptive presidential party nominees John McCain and Barack Obama both spoke to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials today in Washington, DC. I would have been there had it not been the Sabbath. But I hear that it was quite an eventful day with a throng of media and party loyalists - though mostly Democrats - in the audience.

Here's a wrap-up of some of the coverage:

The New York Times Caucus blog reports McCain tells the group "You can trust me" and pledges to solve the full immigration problem (not just borders). McCain was heckled by anti-war group. McCain said: "I’ll be your partner when I’m in the White House." And Obama said: "We are all Americans. Todos somos Americanos" and "I will be your partner in the White House and I will be your champion in the White House."

From USA Today's OnPolitics blog:

"At least 9.2 million Latino voters will cast ballots in November," the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund predicts in a report it released today (which can be downloaded here -- fair warning, it's a large pdf).

Obama's campaign posted his speech to NALEO to YouTube:



AP posted part of McCain's speech to YouTube:



The NALEO conference gave media an extra reason to focus on the Hispanic vote including this piece from Cox News. Here's an excerpt:

Nationwide, the number of Hispanics eligible to vote increased from about 14 million in 2000 to 17 million in 2006, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington. However, registration among Latinos has traditionally been low. In 2004, about 16 million Latinos were eligible to vote, but only 7.6 million cast ballots. The NALEO projection of 9.2 million Latino voters is similar to other estimates. A higher estimate came this month from NDN, a liberal public interest group in Washington. It predicted that a record 11.9 million Hispanics will vote in this year’s presidential contest, 59 percent more than in 2004.