McAuliffe: Obama has a 'problem' with the Latino community

[TeamJordan23]

Clinton surrogates have no problem dividing the party

McAuliffe: Obama has Latino 'problem'

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 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.”

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0608/McAuliffe_Obama_has_Latino_problem.html

[anonymous171]

1. PR is not even a fucking state.

[Kittycat]

5. It's also an insult to compare them, because their issues are far different

than those of hispanics in the states.

[anonymous171]

7. That's what I was attempting to say, although your phrasing makes more sense.

[Patsy Stone]

2. I'd take anything he says these days

with a grain of insanity.

[stray cat]

3. Terry who? Any relation to Icke who?

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

23. He's that washed up has been who used to be a big deal in the Dem party.

That is, until he hitched his wagon to a falling star.

[movonne]

4. He has a problem with his big fat mouth....we will do fine without

his take on what we need..you can see what he did for hillary...

[Thrill]

6. As usual one campaign continues to divide people by color and ethnic background at the same time

cry sexism. You can't make this shit up

[neverforget]

8. and Hillary has a problem with math.......

[shraby]

9. McAullife has a problem with the truth.

[IamyourTVandIownyou]

10. Clinton has a problem with the American community

.

[MercutioATC]

11. Alternate headline "McAuliffe says that all light brown people are the same".

Trying to draw a direct comparison between Latinos in PR and the southwestern U.S.?

Please...

[anonymous171]

13. Hillary: Aren't they?

[AllentownJake]

12. Terry Mac has a problem with the reality based community

[NC_Nurse]

14. I wish these people would STFU. He is such a gasbag!

[Andy823]

15. McAuliffe is another idiot!

The vast majority of Hispanics will vote for the democrat in November, period! This is just more PR trying to get more money! Seems like the "idiots" are running things in Hillary's camp, and they are not doing a very good job!

[DesEtoiles]

16. STFU Terry

[TexasObserver]

17. It's the Clinton Meme of the Day!!

1. Take a result

2. See which demo Hillary showed well in

3. Claim Obama is weak in that demo


Reality: The less educated the voter, the more they vote on name ID, and the less they know about the election or the candidates.

[GoesTo11]

18. McAuliffe wants Latinos to vote for McCain.

That's the problem.

[mzmolly]

19. Easily rectified by a Richards VP.

Neeeeeeeeeeeext. ;)

[slinkerwink]

20. Latinos are not a monothilic group---I'm a Latina for Obama!

[Youphemism]

21. Luckily, Hillary has promised to campaign for him.

If Hillary keeps her word, no problemo.

[barack the house]

22. The Hillary campaign has a problem with losing. All the temper tantrums doesn't change what is a...

delegate race. They many need to check but Puerto Rico and Gaum are not in the GE.

[oasis]

24. Latinos are not likely to vote GOP (McCain) either, so they'll just stay home. (eom)

Don't say you didn't see this coming.

[rainbow4321]

25. She didn't fare too well in TX (8+ million Hispanics)

Let's all think back to her camp's insistance pre-TX primary that her Hispanic supporters in South TX would automatically put TX in her win column. Locally, there were news reports of her TX campaign manager saying that because Obama had not been "south of San Antonio" he no chance in TX.
How did that play out?? With HRC people realizing at the last minute that they were about to be screwed several times over because there were WAY MORE delegates to be gotten in more populated areas NORTH of San Antonio than the sparsely populated Hispanic areas that they were pinning their hopes/win on...OOOOPPPPPS!
All of a sudden we had HRC and her family surrogates doing a mad dash around North Texas and surrounding area cuz they could NO longer count on their Hispanic supporters to get them a win.
In the end, the count was Obama 99-HRC 96, I believe....all because HRC came into the state so sure that her Hispanic voters would give her an easy win.

[Doityourself]

26. McCain is not the same. He backed off Immig. Reform..that and his brown people hating cohorts in the

GOP will sink him further with Latinos.

[crankychatter]

27. Is McAuliffe endorsing a Richardson VP selection? That's very noble...

of course I haven't read the text of the OP yet... just sayin'

[jesus_of_suburbia]

28. We will get over it and Obama will win the majority of the Latino vote in November.

I haven't forgiven Richardson yet after he promised Hillary he would support her (but I'm sure he's not too worried about me, since I live in TN).


But I have no problem supporting Obama. I think the majority of the Latinos will fall in line with Obama, just as the majority of AA's would have voted for Hillary if she had won.

[mod mom]

29. Hillary has a problem w McAuliffe-He's an ASS!

[Peace Patriot]

30. Latinos voting for McCain? Right.

There is something very odd about these Clinton campaign arguments, and, that is that they keep mixing up a primary campaign among DEMOCRATS with a GE campaign against McBush. And I wonder why that is. Do they SEE themselves as McBushites? How come they equate a vote for Clinton with a vote for McBush?

It could be just desperation. They are the "lords" of the party. McAuliffe would think this, I'm sure. They want their fiefdom back. And they'll say anything. But I just find it odd that they would say THIS--that because Puerto Ricans (by no means all Latinos) voted for Clinton against Obama, in a DEMOCRATIC contest, that Obama would then have "a problem" with Latino voters against a Puke like McCain.

Are they actually planning to try to throw the '08 election (as I am convinced that McAuliffe was guilty of, in '04), and regain their fiefdom afterwards? That is, they intend to work AGAINST a Democratic Party win? I have long despised McAuliffe because I think he hates the grass roots of this party, and because he sent never sent my 11/3/04 $100 donation back, when I asked for it. I donated it when there was an emergency call from the DNC on election night, to help pay for lawyers to insure that "all the votes would be counted." I didn't realize, at that point, all that McAuliffe had done to insure that they wouldn't be. I asked for my money back. He never bothered to reply.

Just kidding, kind of. I really did donate for that cause. I really did ask for it back. And he really did ignore me. It's just an illustration of the lies and cynicism of his DNC. And I suspect that, deep in his heart, he was overjoyed when the grass roots that rallied so powerfully for the Kerry/Edwards ticket got crushed that night. He hates us. He wants to be king--or the kingmaker. And he supported Bush's goddamned war and the goddamned Bushite-controlled "trade secret" code voting machines. If Kerry had won (if all the votes had been counted), he would have been a president with a mandate to end the war. That's what people were voting for, and why the grass roots blew the Bushites away in new voter registration nearly 60/40 in 2004, and matched the Bush/Cheney money machine dollar for dollar in small donations. People were hungry for change THEN. And Terry McAuliffe did everything he could to crush those hopes--and to prevent the grass roots from every rising again.

He must be a bitter man--to be so royally defeated by a grass roots campaign, after all his effort to make it a top-down party. Maybe that's why he lies, and twists things this way--saying a vote for Clinton is the equivalent of a vote for McBush. It is perhaps a reflection of the biggest lie of the Clinton campaign--that Clinton would be better for women (right--the Iraq War is better for women; federal bankruptcy is better for women; corporate lobbyists are better for women; the outsourcing of millions of jobs is better for women; NAFTA-induced poverty here and abroad is better for women; the Colombian death squads are better for women)--that he would tell this latest lie, that Puerto Ricans, one of the most reliable of Democratic voting groups, will vote for a Puke over Barack Obama, because they voted for Clinton. And what does that say about Clinton?