“If people only had a little more time to get to know him” in Satna Ana

Jon Wiener goes door-to-door with Obama volunteers in Santa Ana, Califas.

[Congressman Xavier Becerra] told the precinct walkers the key arguments to make when they knocked on Latino doors: At the top of the list: “Obama is the son of an immigrant.” Second: “Obama is a Harvard law grad who went to work as a community organizer.” Then “tell them to read La Opinion, which today endorsed Obama;” and “tell them why this is your first time working in a campaign – why you are doing this.”

The enthusiasm and energy of the first-timers was unmistakable, but it didn’t solve the big problem facing the Obama operation in Santa Ana: the precinct walkers were a largely white group in an overwhelmingly Latino city. When staffers asked how many of the 200 volunteers were bilingual, perhaps a dozen raised their hands….Congressman Becerra summed it up best: “if people only had a little more time to get to know him.”

Dolores Huerta Explains Her Support for a Clinton Restoration

Dolores Huerta explains her rationale for supporting the Clintons (my attempt at an English translation first):

“Remember the years of the Clinton presidency? Those were the good years…and now we want another Clinton to return.”

‘¿Recuerdan los años de [Bill] Clinton en la presidencia? Esos fueron los años buenos… y ahora queremos que otro Clinton regrese”, señaló la icono de la lucha de los trabajadores del campo en California, Dolores Huerta, ayer durante la inauguración de la casa de campaña de Hillary Clinton en el Este de Los Ángeles...

Clinton in California Calling 350,000 voters a day

La Opinion in LA reports the Clinton campaign’s claim that they are making 350,000 phone calls to Californians each from 4,500 phones in 28 state offices. Some quick math shows that the campaign could call all 3 million of California’s registered Democrats in the 9 days before the primary.

Latino Voters in Nevada and Califas: “Outside the wave of Obama-mania?”

Given Michael Whouley’s latest revival job and Bill Richardson’s apparently imminent departure, Latino voters, in Nevada on January 19 and California on Feb. 5 , are being hotly pursued by the remaining Democratic candidates.

For starters, we’re unlikely to see Hillary tryto paint Obama as overly pro-immigrant, as she did earlier this month. Absentee voting began Monday in California. In LA, JDL links to a Daily News article that notes that half of all 18-24 year-old voters are Latino. Jaime Regalado of Cal State LA’s Pat Brown Institute: “The negative focus on immigration could also get more young Latinos to the polls. This is one way for these young people to express their anger and exercise their political rights.” JDL further places the election within the context of SoCal (racial and generational) politics:

Current Black-Brown tensions and the recent focus on immigration will make the Obama – Hillary fight a microcosm of Los Angeles class and racial politics. Latino political heavy weights like Antonio Villaraigosa and Fabian Nunez have lined up behind Hillary. Other Los Angeles-based politicians, Assembly Majority Leader Karen Bass, City Council President Eric Garcetti, and Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, have thrown their support behind Obama. Labor is split on the two candidates. …[I]t will be an entertaining month.

In addition to immigration, California’s economic crisis will be a central issue for Latino and non-Latino voters (the mortgage crisis, the state’s $14 billion budget deficit, the Hollywood writers’ strike, the price of gas), as will issues of police brutality and gangs. That’s a lot to fit into a 30-second spot in any language.

But first Nevada, where Obama picked up the immigrant-driven SEIU and Culinary Workers endorsements. Will Clinton ally, and Cuban-American, Sen. Bob Menendez’s weekend’s foray into the state have an impact on the mostly Chicano, Mexican, and Central American voters?

Writing from New York for New America Media, Robert Lovato points out that another effect of New Hampshire is that the Dems aren’t the only ones chasing the non-Cuban Latino vote:

McCain’s unique challenge to Democrats for the Latino vote comes down to simple math: his GOP rivals’ zeal to win white votes with anti-immigrant appeals is perceived by my father (“I’ll be below the earth before voting for any of them”) and other Latinos, as severely anti-immigrant and anti-Latino, if not racist. McCain’s calls to treat immigrants “humanely” during the Spanish-language GOP debate contrasted strikingly with the smiley “get tough” talk of his shrill opponents…

[W]hen Democrats are evasive -– as in Clinton’s driver’s license flip-flop or when Obama vacillated after being asked by Univision anchors about his vote for the border wall — I see the moral and political opening exploited by Bush in 2004, and McCain before 2008. My father and most Latinos reject the wall as a “muro de la muerte” (wall of death). That the immigration debate merits neither Clinton’s attention nor Obama’s abundant rhetorical powers explains Latinos’ frustration (documented in the recent Pew Hispanic poll) and leaves many of us outside the wave of Obama-mania.

The Economist’s Unwarranted Crush on Schwarzenegger

I’m an unabashed fan of the Economist– it’s one of only two print publications I regularly read and I listen to the (recently improved) podcasts– I’ll surely join as a “fan” if they ever become a Facebook product (as the New York Times has done). They’ve begun to beef up their coverage of the Presidential election with Democracy in America, a recent audio piece in which Robert Reich and an undecided New Hampshire voter evaluated candidates’ economic plans was particularly good. With that caveat, two aspects of their (with anonymous writers, they’re a they) recent US coverage rankles.

The Lexington column, datelined Nov. 1, praises Gov. Schwarzenegger , bemoaning the fact that his “post-partisanship” approach has failed to catch on nationally four years after bringing his stogies and Hummers to the statehouse. We don’t know who the author is, but I’m guessing she or he does not reside in California.

Mr Schwarzenegger is the Republican Party’s biggest star… nobody else can boast such broad appeal….Mr Schwarzenegger is a natural….[W]hen the governor wants to get something important done, he first agrees a plan with the state legislature—which means, in effect, the Democratic majority. Together, they then ask voters to approve it, along with any necessary new taxes or debt. This is how, last year, the state approved the issuing of a whopping $43 billion in bonds for infrastructure. Although little progress has been made so far on a plan to expand health coverage, that reform will almost certainly follow the same route. This strange hybrid of politics as usual and direct democracy has two advantages. It inoculates bills against future mischievous ballot initiatives, since people are not likely to vote down a measure that they have previously voted for. More important, it neuters California’s troublesome Republicans.

Compare that self-assured (and presumably drive-by) account with this week’s news that California finds itself with another budget crisis. Here is how the the LA Times’ Sacremento bureau framed it. Governor teeters on edge of deficit abyss: He talked about the state living within its means, but nothing changed. Now a crisis threatens.

Experts say the state’s spending habits are no more restrained than they were when Schwarzenegger arrived in Sacramento four years ago. The budget has grown by a staggering 40%. Costly programs have been launched.

And spending has continued to outpace tax receipts year after year — even years when housing and tech booms led to cash windfalls.

Now the governor finds himself in a predicament similar to that of his predecessor, Democrat Gray Davis: staring at a crippling budget shortfall that threatens to overshadow all other business in the Capitol and tarnish his political legacy.

I imagine that the Economist is approaching the New Yorker’s reality in having more readers in California than in its home region. One would hope that as its coverage of the States expands, so will its penchant for accuracy.

My second complaint concerns the 08 Presidential preference poll from YouGov/Polimetrix from last week. It’s customary in these parts to run, if not highlight or explain in depth, margins of error. The magazine mentions a web link with details on the poll, but the link above provides no details about, and no obvious links to background on, the survey.