Recent Spanish-Language TV Ads from the Presidential Candidates

Recent positive Obama ad "Opportunidad" and get out the vote (GOTV) video aimed at Latino voters in Nevada





McCain's latest Spanish-language TV attack/negative ads "Riesgo" (Risk) and below that is "Fraudulent"





And a negative "documentary" web video asking Latinos of Chicago "Where is Obama?"



And previously, Obama's negative/attack ads "Dos Caras" (a repost on this blog) and "No Hay Mayor Obligacion" which ran in Florida, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado

Adam Segal Featured on JHU's Great Ideas Podcast

I had the honor of serving as the guest scholar on the latest edition of the monthly Johns Hopkins University Great Ideas Podcast. It's a huge honor to be asked to participate in this podcast.

August 2008: Adam Segal, who teaches in the Master of Arts in Communication program in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Advanced Academic Programs, is watching two key developments in this year's presidential campaign: outreach to Hispanic voters and increased use of interactive technology to market candidates.

In related news, I finished grading the massive stack of final papers for the students in my Internet Strategies course at JHU in Washington, DC this summer!

OBAMA/DNC TO INVEST $20 MILLION IN HISPANIC OUTREACH

The Washington Post's Shalaigh Murray reports today on "$20 million investment in Hispanic voter mobilization" by the DNC and Obama for America.

The DNC put out an advisory saying they will, this afternoon, "hold a conference call to discuss the historic and unprecedented announcement that the Democratic campaign will commit $20 million to mobilizing Hispanic voters."

Since when does the DNC have a massive cash-flow to invest in what essentially has become a Democratic Party base vote this cycle? Sure the Obama campaign has already invested millions in Hispanic voter outreach starting in the primaries. But this announcement makes me wonder if when they say $20 million they really mean something else. Perhaps the fact that most Democratic fundraising dollars are going to the Obama and DNC operations, instead of the shadowy 527s of yesteryear, means this is the total consolidated effort on the Democratic side. Still, it would represent well more than double any previous effort. Yes, as the advisory say, it would be "historic."

What's the McCain campaign/RNC to do now?

UPDATE: 4:10 pm

AP put out a big national story on the wire about this announcement.

The campaign said the $20 million will be spent on registering and mobilizing voters, advertisements and online organizing.

I've received calls from reporters with La Opinion and South Florida Sun-Sentinel about this effort, a little evidence of the excitement this announcement is stirring up.

UPDATE: 5:15 pm

The Obama campaign is really playing up the historic-money angle, according to the DNC press release:

The unprecedented $20 million commitment to engage and mobilize Hispanics will include voter mobilization, voter registration, online organizing, community outreach and paid advertising. Part of the effort will also include "Camp Obama" trainings around the country, which will empower Hispanics with the organizing tools and information they need to engage and turn out voters in their home neighborhoods and states. Both the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee also have Hispanic staff involved at every level of the campaign, from field organizers to senior roles.

Senator Barack Obama's campaign has already spent more on Hispanic outreach than any presidential campaign before it, and now the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee will join together in this unprecedented initiative to continue promoting engagement and mobilization among Hispanic voters and build on already overwhelming Hispanic support for the Democratic party and Senator Obama.

And this comes as no surprise, Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) members applaud the $20 million announcement.

UPDATE: 7:40 pm

Obama campaign and DNC have been citing my Hispanic Voter Project research. See this from NBC News First Read blog.

The New York Times blog "The Caucus" cites our research in a post about today's announcement:

The D.N.C. and the Obama campaign will jointly finance the effort. They noted that the $20 million sum was more than double what the Bush and Kerry campaigns spent altogether on Hispanic outreach during the 2004 election, according to a Johns Hopkins University study.

Politico: The McCain-Latino disconnect

Politico newspaper/website columnist David Paul Kuhn has a stinging piece out today about McCain's difficulty in attracting Latino voter support. He argues that a new poll, building on the evidence from other recent national polls, demonstrates McCain is in deep trouble with Hispanic voters and in particular religious Hispanic voters. Here's his basic premise:

While he earned the support of about seven in ten Hispanics in his last Arizona Senate race, a Pew Hispanic Center poll released Thursday shows that just 23 percent of Latinos intend to vote for McCain in the presidential contest, barely half of the four in ten Latino voters who exit polls showed voted for President Bush in 2004.

Kuhn quotes me in this piece, giving me the "kicker quote" as it's commonly referred to:

“You begin with the anti-immigrant legislation that came out of the House and jump started a level of activism in the Latino community that we had not seen ever,” said Adam Segal, director of the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University “and you add to that the favorable political environment for Democrats in general,” and it’s hard, he said, to see McCain’s numbers among Hispanics improving.

“This cycle is extremely favorable to Obama and the Democrats,” Segal, who then paused before emphasizing “extremely.”

Pew Hispanic Center: Hispanics Support Obama over McCain by Three-to-One

As I've predicted, Sen. Obama is dominating the early process of wooing Hispanic voters ahead of the November election. Today the Pew Hispanic Center added to a pile of data showing Obama with a commanding, early lead.

Hispanic registered voters support Democrat Barack Obama for president over Republican John McCain by 66% to 23%, according to a nationwide survey of 2,015 Latinos conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center, from June 9 through July 13, 2008.

The next point they make is a little overstated in my opinion, but you can judge for yourself:

In addition to their strong support for Obama, Latino voters have moved sharply into the Democratic camp in the past two years, reversing a pro-GOP tide that had been evident among Latinos earlier in the decade. Some 65% of Latino registered voters now say they identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with just 26% who identify with or lean toward the GOP. This 39 percentage point Democratic Party identification edge is larger than it has been at any time this decade; as recently as 2006, the partisan gap was just 21 percentage points.

CNN.com has it as top news story at the moment. They quote one of the lead authors of the Pew analysis:

"He now appears to be even more popular than Hillary Clinton among Latinos," Lopez said.

And the Associated Press has a piece out on the wire on this poll already.

Obama Spanish-language Radio Ad + McCain Hispanic Outreach

I'm in a Politics Magazine online piece today about ethnic targeting in the presidential campaign. And I'm quoted in tomorrow's Washington Times article that reports on a new Spanish-language radio ad put out today by the Obama campaign. MSNBC distributed the transcript of the Obama ad around noon today. And click here for the audio from the Obama campaign's Latino section from its web page.

In related news, today in DC I bumped into Juan Hernandez the well-publicized volunteer Hispanic outreach coordinator for the McCain campaign today. I joked with him that Newsweek should have its reporters walk around with me to save them trouble of trying to reach him by phone. Click the link. It'll make more sense.

And in other news, Texas Governor Rick Perry has appointed a friend and colleague of mine Hope Andrade to be Secretary of State for the State of Texas. Congratulations Hope! This is a towering accomplishment. She has become the first Latina to hold this important position. Hope will be the State's chief elections officer, among many other important duties.

NPR: Campaign Ads Look to Reach Hispanic Voters

NPR continues its extensive coverage of the Hispanic vote with this somewhat old-news story that ran on Weekend Edition today. What I liked most about this piece was the excerpts from interviews with some non-talking heads, you know the real voter types. I also liked the fact that it dispels some lingering myths about Hispanic community uniformity. Listen here.

Obama Campaign Pledges to Smash All Hispanic TV & Radio Spending Records!

According to The New York Times article on Obama, McCain and the Hispanic vote: “We’re going to spend more money on Latino TV and radio than has ever been spent on a presidential campaign, and by a lot,” Cuahtemoc Figueroa, the director of Mr. Obama’s Latino vote effort, told members of La Raza on Sunday.

Wow. This is significant. Not only did the Obama and Clinton campaigns combine to smash primary records, this is a firm commitment to spend more and do more on Hispanic voter outreach. If this doesn't put enormous pressure on the McCain to step up and spend more, I don't know what will.

Obama is going to win the Hispanic vote this cycle, no doubt. The question is whether he can increase Democratic support to historic levels? They're clearly aiming to achieve that.

Visit the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University website to put this in context.

McCain's Speech Makes Big News; Commitment to Pass Comprehensive Immigration Reforms

Last night I posted my thoughts about the Obama and McCain speeches to LULAC. Here's how two reporters who were actually there in the room saw it!

First, The New York Times found McCain's comments about immigration reform to be quite newsworthy. Giving it a feel-good headline: McCain tells Hispanic group of his commitment to immigration reform

Second, Dana Milbank of The Washington Post had a funny review of the Obama and McCain LULAC speeches, summing it up by calling both big panderers. Parity of pandering. He had at least one McCain quote that made McCain's speech seem quite personal (somewhat in contrast to my perception that Obama had a more personal speech).

Milbank also posted an awesome, humorous video from the LULAC event to the WPost site that mirrors the column in the paper today. Check it out here!

Obama's Powerful, Personal Speech to LULAC

I don't care what you thought was going to happen with Obama and the Hispanic vote during the Democratic primaries (many of you thought the strong Clinton support meant Obama couldn't earn Hispanic support in the general election). Polls have proven skeptics of Obama's support in the Hispanic community wrong quite rapidly.

Today he took another step forward in taking up the title of the candidate for the Hispanic community. He gave a powerful, personal speech. He demonstrated he knows Hispanic community organization issues, knows LULAC (a pillar organization in the community for decades) and that he's ready to lead the nation with the Hispanic community in mind each day. That's powerful not only for a Democratic politician, but also for an African American politician.

Check out his speech from today and the audience's response. Powerful. Personal. Real.



I've carefully examined the speeches of both candidates today. And I shared some of my thoughts briefly in a big interivew on XM Satellite Radio's POTUS '08 this afternoon.

McCain's speech was much less personal, and really a recitation of policy proposals and priorities he has put out the last few weeks and months. He had some personal thoughts in the closing paragraphs, but the difference was stark.

The Hill posted excerpts from McCain's speech. They sound good, but gosh I don't see the personal passion and excitement. Maybe I just don't know McCain well enough. Check it out here and judge for yourself:



I'd love to help McCain develop a more powerful, personal message to the Hispanic community-based organizations and the community more generally. He deserves to be able to communicate better with this community, one he cares about.

Sure the Hispanic community cares about the same issues as the general electorate, but they also want to know how candidates connect to Latinos as a community and personally. And the way Obama speaks about immigration seems much more natural, less parsed. McCain has got to do better when he speaks to NCLR (La Raza) in San Diego about a week from now.

I'd love to expand upon these quick thoughts, and I hope to in the near future.

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.

Kos Conventional Wisdom on Hispanic Vote Was Wrong

Kos blogs today that the conventional wisdom (CW) that Obama will have trouble with Hispanic voters is wrong. He cites data, new and old, suggesting "Obama [is] poised to absolutely crush McCain."