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 News from Around the Americas | January 2008 
Clinton Courts Hispanic Vote in the West
 Philip Elliott – Associated Press
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| | Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., shakes hands after her speech at the Sheet Metal Workers Union training center in Las Vegas, Saturday, Jan. 12, 2008. (AP/Elise Amendola) | | |
Las Vegas — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, attempting to earn the "la presidenta" title bestowed by supporters in the West in recent days, appealed to Nevada's Hispanic community Saturday to back her potentially history-making candidacy as an affirmation of the American dream they share.
"Help us reach our common purpose," Clinton said at a rally touting her support within the Hispanic community. "The common purpose of America is progress, not just for the wealthy and the well-connected, but everyone. Every single person deserves a shot at the American dream. That is why I'm running for president."
Clinton, reinvigorated after an unexpected win in New Hampshire's primary last week, has spent the last three days courting the crucial Hispanic vote in Nevada, which holds presidential cacuses Jan. 19, and in California, the biggest prize on Feb. 5 when more than 20 states hold presidential contests.
In Nevada, where one in four residents is of Hispanic or Latino descent, Clinton's push is no surprise. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson spent more time courting Nevada Hispanics than any other candidate. His departure from the race puts much of the Hispanic vote up for grabs.
"Si, se puede," supporters cheered her at a union hall with New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez and former Cabinet secretary Henry Cisneros in tow. "Yes, we can."
It was the same chant Obama joined in only a day earlier as he picked up the endorsement of the Culinary Workers Union, the largest and most powerful labor organization in the state.
Clinton's caucus record isn't great — she placed a disappointing third in Iowa's caucuses.
But she's not conceding Nevada's caucuses, or the Hispanic voting bloc. On Thursday, she went door-to-door in a largely Hispanic neighborhood here with Ruben Kihuen, a charismatic member of the state Assembly who is helping her campaign. She went to East Los Angeles a day later to eat at King Taco on Cesar Chavez Boulevard with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. And on Saturday, she came back to Las Vegas and Reno to build support among Hispanics.
Nationally, among Hispanics who are registered Democrats, 59 percent said they want Clinton to be their party's presidential candidate, followed by 15 percent who prefer Obama, according to a survey released last month by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center.
Clinton's advisers and supporters have emphasized that her campaign could make history while working to not alienate minority voters who might be tempted to vote for Obama, who could be the first black president.
"We will make history when she becomes president of the United States," Cisneros said. "For the first time we will have a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister as president of the United States."
Clinton also praised New Mexico Gov Bill Richardson, who tried to become the nation's first Hispanic president, but dropped out of the race after a poor showing in Iowa and New Hampshire. He has yet to endorse one of his former rivals.
"He broke through a barrier by running for president," she said. "I salute his service and thank him for his many kindnesses to me."
It's unclear, whether Clinton can become, as supporters called her, "la presidenta" without deep support in the Hispanic community.
"Vamos a este caucuses," Cisneros said, rallying sheet metal workers in Las Vegas on Saturday.
Clinton has been talking about a practical approach to immigration in recent weeks, saying those who favor deportation of illegal immigrants ignore the logistical impossibility. She said it would take $200 billion and a convoy of 200,000 buses stretching 1,700 miles to make the border impenetrable.
"I think Americans would put up with that for a nanosecond," she said. "Let's get real here. That will never happen."
She also keyed in on criticism of President Bush during a meeting with voters about the environment and subprime mortgages.
"This is the worst economic policy since the Great Depression," Clinton told voters at a Mexican restaurant, where voters told their personal stories of foreclosure.
After the stop in Reno, Clinton headed for South Carolina, where rival and native son John Edwards has been campaigning since the day after the New Hampshire primary, playing up his Palmetto State roots.
"Nobody has to tell me what's happening in South Carolina. I don't jet in here and hold a political event and go back somewhere else. I'm not from Chicago or New York. I'm from South Carolina, " Edwards told reporters after a town hall meeting Saturday in Barnwell, S.C.
South Carolina has its Democratic primary Jan. 26.
Associated Press Writer Bruce Smith in Barnwell, S.C., contributed to this report.
Critics Pounce on Clinton After Immigration Comments
Molly Ball - Review-Journal
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An off-the-cuff comment Hillary Clinton made in Las Vegas on Thursday has ignited a national firestorm.
Answering a shout from a man in the crowd who said, "I'm married to an illegal woman," Clinton shot back, "No woman is illegal," grinning as the packed Mexican restaurant at which she was speaking exploded in cheers.
That comment, reported in Friday's Review-Journal, caught the attention of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs and the Drudge Report and led to nearly 1,000 angry comments on the newspaper's Web site.
To put the remark into context, Clinton did add, after a pause, "... and no man, either." She then explained her position on immigration.
But anti-illegal immigration activists weren't upset because of sexism, but because of the implication that those who cross the border illegally aren't lawbreakers. Many demanded an explanation.
Clinton, a spokeswoman said, meant that she "believes you can be tough on the issue of illegal immigration without being mean-spirited about the human beings involved."
The spokeswoman, Hilarie Grey, noted that Clinton's position is to secure the border in addition to treating current illegal immigrants humanely.
"It simply isn't true" that there aren't illegal immigrants, said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-illegal immigration group. "We have immigration laws, and yet we have government officials who have sworn to uphold the laws of this country saying if somebody violates them, they make an exception to the rule of law."
Mehlman's group was one of the main forces in derailing a bipartisan immigration reform bill that passed the U.S. Senate but was killed in the House of Representatives in 2006. The measure failed after a massive grass-roots campaign fueled by talk radio jammed congressional phone lines and e-mail in-boxes.
The group is nonpartisan and has targeted Republicans who fall out of line with its message just as harshly as it has Democrats.
"Illegal alien is a legal term," he said. "It describes somebody who violates our immigration laws. You can apply the law to people without showing disrespect to them as human beings. Illegal immigrants should be treated with human decency, but we still need to enforce immigration laws."
Politicians, Mehlman said, don't understand the anger of average Americans on the immigration issue, anger that crosses party lines.
"On a gut level, we have millions of people getting away with not playing by the rules while we are expected to play by the rules, so there is a sense of unfairness," he said. "But this also directly affects a lot of people who work for a living, or have kids in school, or rely on social services."
He added, "I'm sure the children of people Hillary Clinton hangs around with, their kids aren't sitting in classrooms where half the kids don't speak English and nobody's learning anything."
The episode illustrates the inflammatory nature of the immigration debate as well as the degree to which it hinges on issues of semantics.
Though immigration is a red-hot issue nationally, it will be spotlighted in the run-up to Nevada's Jan. 19 caucuses, established partly to give Hispanics a voice in the presidential nominating process.
Las Vegas Democratic activist Tony Sanchez, head of the IMPACTO political action committee of the Latin Chamber of Commerce, said of Clinton's comment, "Good for her."
Sanchez said he doesn't like it when people are referred to as illegal. "A person can't be illegal," he said. "You can be undocumented. You can not have your papers. You can be noncompliant. But to call people 'illegals' is meanness."
Sanchez said Clinton shouldn't be portrayed as a radical illegal immigrant-coddler for a few compassionate words. "She didn't say to open up the borders," he said. "She was responding to a crowd that wanted to hear that, and I happen to agree with her."
Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball(at)reviewjournal.com |
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