Foreshadowing Some Big News!
More soon.
“Alternative to Romney” Race Heads to Florida
From my new piece at NBCLatino:
The “alternative to Romney” race will now drag the frontrunner through Florida, giving Republican Hispanics a legitimate opportunity to weigh in on their nominee and forcing Romney to find his way back to the middle on issues such as immigration faster than he would have liked.
Unlike the first three primary states, where Hispanics constitute less than 2% of the overall vote in each state, the Hispanic vote actually matters in Florida, even in a primary. In 2008, Florida’s Hispanic voters accounted for 12% of 2008 GOP primary voters; 54% broke for McCain, 24% for Giuliani, and only 14% for Romney.
In an effort to win over conservative voters, Romney has spent the past year espousing views formerly ascribed only to the GOP fringe, most recently promising to veto the DREAM Act. But as Florida approaches, Romney will need to pivot.
Romney’s Rejection of Choice Amounts to Harassment
From Politic365:
Poll after poll indicates that women swing voters are prioritizing bread and butter issues like jobs, the economy, healthcare and education over “social” issues like choice, immigration and gay rights.
But “personhood” initiatives and cuts to family planning programs aren’t just about reproductive freedom. This is a window into what the GOP and Mitt Romney represent and who would be protected in their America. By supporting such initiatives, Romney is telling women voters and their families that their freedom and rights over their own bodies — the freedom to protect one’s self from unintended pregnancy through safe and effective birth control, and the freedom to make the sad and impossible decision to terminate a life-threatening pregnancy — is of less importance to him than winning.
Read the full article here.
Family Secrets
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Video: I Get Sean Hannity to Admit That He Support Elements of the Obama Jobs Plan
From the way Conservative talk show host Sean Hannity criticizes President Obama’s jobs plan, you’d assume that there is literally nothing about this legislation that he finds appealing. This is interesting given how many elements of the plan are originally Republican proposals. But behold! I have discovered at least one matter on which Hannity supports the president: the payroll tax cut.
Want to learn more about how payroll tax cuts help to create jobs? Read this piece.
Who’s Afraid of Susana Martínez?
Susana Martínez, the first Latina governor in the United States, made waves earlier this month when she acknowledged that her grandparents had been undocumented immigrants. Immigration advocates, desperate to disarm Martínez, have pointed to her family history as a reason she should revisit her positions on immigration, including dropping her bid to repeal a state law that allows undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers’ licenses. Instead, this revelation seems to have upped the ante on Martínez ‘s anti-immigrant crusade. Recently, she took a swing at presidential hopeful Rick Perry for his support of in-state tuition for undocumented minors in Texas.
To believe that Martínez’s personal history would change her politics presumes that empathy or a recognition of hypocrisy — that she is a beneficiary of the very immigration loopholes that she is working to close — is enough to motivate Martinez to do the right thing. Quite the contrary. Anyone who has observed Martinez’s approach to immigration, stretching back to her campaign, would anticipate that begging Martinez to consider “her roots” only gives her an opportunity to prove once again that her actions are dictated by conviction — a tireless belief in law and order — over sentiment or identity. Why else would Martínez insist that the state Senate focus on this repeal during its 30 day special session when a similar repeal effort failed just months ago?
Upon learning of Martínez’s family history, one Democratic operative gleefully crowed, “She’s over.” National Republicans would never be able to promote someone whose personal story implicitly undermines the Republican narrative about undocumented immigrants destroying America. But Susana Martínez isn’t over. She’s just getting started. As Republicans try to strike a balance between courting the burgeoning Hispanic vote — particularly in important electoral college states like Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Florida and, yes, New Mexico — and shoring up their pro-enforcement, sometimes anti-immigrant base, who better to prove that these objectives are not mutually exclusive than a Latina governor, from a border state, who is nationally known for pushing restrictionist measures?
Video: On MSNBC Discussing the War on Everyday Americans
As Publishers Court Latinos in English Online, Offline Spanish is King
(Cross-posted from DailyGrito)
Suddenly it seems like every publisher and their mamá has decided to court the emerging Latino market. Recently, The Huffington Post announced a new section, “Latino Voices,” and Fox News Launched Fox News Latino. I guess they too read the census. It is notable that the bulk of the new non-Latino-owned mega-sites are emerging in English — an obvious evolution given that bilingual and English-dominant Hispanics are more digitally plugged in than Spanish-dominant Hispanics. But while various new enterprises clamor for this readership online, there’s also something interesting happening off-line: Spanish-language outlets are tending to do better overall than their mainstream English-language peers.
According to a new study from the Pew Research Center, many Spanish-language outlets are growing. Univision, the largest Spanish-language network is now performing competitively with the three major English-language broadcast networks. According to the study: “In the 2010-2011 television season, Univision was the only major U.S. TV network to grow average primetime audience among 18-49 year olds—up 8% versus the season before. For the same demographic group, among the English-language networks, Fox lost 4%, CBS lost 8%, ABC lost 9% and NBC lost 14% over the same period.” In addition, the number of Spanish-language radio stations increased, magazines demonstrated year-over-year growth in ad spending, and while Hispanic newspapers saw a dip in their circulation, they still fared better than their English-language peers.
The growth of Spanish-language media may surprise some. Read one way, all signs point away from Spanish-language media: Latinos are increasingly young and American born, and a majority is bilingual. Adios Español, hello Ingles. Right? Not so fast. That assumption belies the experience of most young Latinos who, regardless of their default tongue, move seamlessly between English and Spanish-dominant worlds. Even I who grew up in an English-only home watched Sabado Gigante and rode a school bus where we only listened to La Mega 97.9 and Amor 93.1. It should be no surprise that Latinos continue to consume Spanish-language media.
Beyond language, there are additional unique strengths of the Spanish-language press. While local newspapers continue to shut their doors, the structure of the Spanish-language print press in local and regional clusters makes them some of the only outlets that still offer local news. That offers Latinos a way to access their local news, and it allows businesses a way to access local Latinos. Consider this:
Local ad revenue makes up a much larger slice of the advertising pie for Hispanic newspapers than does national ad revenue. In 2010, local ads accounted for 78% of all Hispanic newspaper ad revenue, or $554 million, according to Latino Print Network. National ad revenue accounted for 21% ($151 million); online web advertising represented only 1% of ad revenue ($7.2 million).
As more Latinos gain digital access, these numbers will shift yet again — but in which direction? Will Spanish-language media begin to turn that offline interest into online readership? Will they begin to expand their coverage to include English? Will more English-language online sites decide they too need a tilde in the title? Could it be that while the traditional “cross-over” has meant Spanish to English that some of these sites will ultimately expand to Spanish? And most importantly, even with all the translators in the world, will any of these Jose-come-latelies be able to deliver for a Latino audience when their outlets are neither Latino owned nor operated?
Interview with Matt Barreto: New Poll Finds Obama’s Approval Numbers Slipping Among Latinos
(Cross-posted from DailyGrito)
Yesterday, Latino Decision released a new poll which found Obama’s approval numbers dipping among Latinos. Here, Latino Decisions pollster Matt Barreto weighs in on the importance of immigration to young Latinos, how the new changes in prosecutorial discretion could affect Obama’s approval ratings, and who Latino voters will hold accountable for the debt deal.
DG: The economy has shot back to being the #1 issue.
MB: The economy and immigration have both been mentioned at top issues of concern by Latino voters since SB1070 took center stage in the Spring of 2010. For most of 2010 the economy was listed as the top issue, and immigration as the number two issue, especially as the election neared and the candidates and the media talked non-stop about the economy. Into 2011 as more and more media attention in the Latino community focused on immigration and deportations, immigration popped up as the top issue. This was also around the time that President Obama hosted multiple meetings on immigration, and gave the speech in El Paso. Now, with the extensive focus on the debt ceiling in August, we see the economy returning as the top issue, however immigration remains a very important issue as well to Latino voters.
MB: Immigration reform, and especially support for the DREAM Act has become a very significant issue with younger Latinos. This is because they are more likely to be in contact, through their extensive social networks, with DREAM Act-eligible Latinos. When a young undocumented college student gets detained or deported, news spreads very quickly across facebook and twitter, and our survey data suggests younger Latinos are very, very committed to this issue. Even as the younger population tends to be heavily U.S. born, we know that their parents or grandparents are immigrants. So when the immigration issue comes up you are speaking about their friends, and their parents, so it becomes very personal. While they also worry about their future in terms of the economy, jobs, the issue of immigration has become very personal, and symbolically important. In our previous poll in June 2011, we found that 59% of Latinos age 18-35 said they personally knew an undocumented immigrant, the highest of any age group. This month in August 2011, we found that 82% of Latinos age 18-35 support the state level DREAM Act to provide in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants who are accepted to college.
DG: Do you think these numbers will be impacted by the latest change in prosecutorial discretion?
MB: The August 2011 impreMedia/Latino Decisions poll was in the field July 29-Aug 9, a good week before word came of the change by DHS in detention and deportation policy. While Obama’s approval numbers have dropped 10 points among Latinos since April, a good question is whether or not the recent changes to DHS policy will turn those numbers around. If the White House actively promotes the new policy shift, through public outreach to Latinos, there is good reason to believe Latinos will respond with increased support for the President. While immigration is just one of a number of important issues to the Latino community, it has become a very important symbolic issue over the past two years. With prominent figures such as Jorge Ramos and Luis Gutierrez continuing to call attention to the Obama administration’s record on deportations, and the lack of immigration reform in the Congress, Latino voters know very well the failed promises on immigration. Now, with this new announcement by DHS, this could provide a first positive step for the President in talking to Latino voters about a humane solution to immigration enforcement. However, the President and the White House must tout this accomplishment, not sweep it under the rug like a small footnote, in their outreach to Latinos. The next impreMedia/Latino Decisions poll will be released in early October 2011 and we will gauge reaction to this policy shift.
MB: With respect to the debt deal, the data are very clear – Latino voters strongly supported a solution that included both tax increases on the wealthy, alongside cuts to existing programs. The deal that was struck on August 2nd did not produce any tax or revenue increases, and this is very far out of touch with what a majority of Latino voters supported. But not just Latinos, almost every poll showed that a majority of all Americans supported the inclusion of tax increases on the wealthy as a way to address the debt ceiling issue. In this survey we did not ask respondents who they blame, but the deal could only be achieved by both Republicans and President Obama cooperating, so my sense is that both sides are to blame. Back in February we asked respondents if they thought policymakers in Washington D.C. take into account the viewpoints of the Latino community when enacting economic reforms, and 43% said no, 38% somewhat, and just 11% said yes. The August debt deal is further evidence that what Latino voters told us in February is true.
DG: In Texas, numbers are highest for Republicans, even higher than Florida – was this in the field before or after Rick Perry got in the race?
MB: The poll was in the field before Rick Perry announced. I believe he announced on August 13th and our poll was out of the field on August 9th. The sample sizes by state are small, so we don’t read too much into them unless there are huge differences. The overall sample for the poll is n=500 with a margin of error of +/- 4.3.
