The Barack Obama campaign posted on YouTube a new thirty and sixty second Spanish-language television ad targeting Latino voters in Nevada. The thirty-second spot contains a grammatical mistake.

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I’ve written previously (here and here) about Miguel Orozco’s plan to release three mini-novelas as a means of independently drumming up support for Senator Barack Obama’s candidacy. Well, today, all three videos have been posted to YouTube. San Francisco-based Vote Hope paid for the video production.

According to the group’s press release, “The Hispanic community is a key battleground in California and nationally, and Vote Hope is aiming to increase political participation among this rapidly-growing demographic group. The mini-novelas address the fact that many Latinos are not registered to voter and many who are, do not vote regularly.”

Each of the videos tackle subjects that don’t get much of a hearing, at least within the Latino community. The first episode implicitly criticizes those who are willing to march but unwilling to vote. In the second episode, the impact of deportation on friends and family is discussed. And the last topic is Black-Latino relations.

As with all but the very best of its genre, some of the dialogue in the mini-novelas can seem simplistic or stilted and some of the acting can seem forced. However, taken as a whole the videos can be oddly affecting.

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Miguel Orozco still holds the title for the most innovative piece of Latino political marketing in this campaign to date. Orozco produced a catchy reggaetón jingle on his own dime to promote the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama.

Now he has put together “a web-based mini-novela series” for the same purpose. Right now, all that’s available is a preview clip:

For more information about this story, read here.
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As discussed here earlier, LaVibra.com carried a Spanish-language simulcast of Senator Barack Obama’s appearance on the MTV and MySpace Presidential Candidate Dialogue Series.

Yesterday, during the program, Senator Barack Obama briefly shifted from being questioned to asking questions. He was asked about immigration by a young woman whose father had been deported. He expressed empathy and asked if her father had been able to return. No, she answered. How long ago was this, Obama asked. Three years, she said.

It was a simple exchange and not terribly important in the overall electoral race. But, it marks some kind of symbolic turning point when a young Latina openly states on national television that her father was deported and proceeds to ask an African American presidential candidate if he might have a solution for her and others facing the same problem.

Here is El Diario/La Prensa’s take on the exchange. By the way, ImpreMedia Digital CEO Arturo Durán reports a 50% jump in traffic at LaVibra.com as a result of the Obama appearance.

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Senator Barack Obama’s Monday appearance as part of the MySpace and MTV Presidential Candidate Dialogue Series will be simulcast in Spanish at LaVibra.com. This is the second such presentation by the ImpreMedia-owned website with the first featuring John Edwards. The simulcast has been extensively promoted in the ImpreMedia stable of newspapers, which include El Diario/La Prensa in New York, La Raza in Chicago and La Opinión in Los Angeles.

Arturo Durán CEO of ImpreMedia LLC said the simulcast was only one of the company’s various efforts to mobilize Hispanic voters

Asked if these efforts had led to any political advertising, Duran responded there had been expressions of interest but nothing definitive yet. That said, there’s been a lot more interest than during the previous presidential elections. And, Duran considers this a hopeful sign that the candidates are taking Hispanic voters more seriously, “There’s a direct relationship between what the candidates spend on advertising to reaching certain targets and the interest they have in those audience segments.”

As I wrote earlier today, Senator Barack Obama was interviewed by La Opinión. You can hear the interview, which is in English (click where it says “Entrevista completa en inglés” or read the Spanish-language translation). However, I couldn’t find a transcript of the interview either at the campaign’s website or its Spanish-language section (which is marred by poor Spanish-language grammar). So here goes some transcribed excerpts of the interview with La Opinión:

On Immigration

“We have to fight against this us versus them mentality. “

“The history of this country has always been waves of immigrants come and people treat the newcomers as if somehow they were here all along forgetting they themselves are part of an immigrant past. And I think the next president has to lead on this issue and try to draw a better attitude among our people.”

“Number one, it is not illegitimate in a modern nation-state to have some control over your borders. Mexico is probably tougher on migrants from Central America than America … The second thing is that I do think that part of the reason why you are seeing this anti-immigrant sentiment right now is that there is a lot of economic anxiety among American workers because George Bush´s policies have been very good for corporate profits but have not been good for ordinary workers so their wages have stagnated. Because of globalization you see jobs move overseas. It used to be they moved to Mexico now they are going to China. So people feel as if maybe their futures are insecure so they look for someone to blame. And part of what we have to do is not only remind people that we are a nation of immigrants. But, we also have to make sure that the American worker feels that somebody is fighting for them, for health care, for a decent wage because I think if they feel that way, then they are less likely to engage in some of these sort of ugly sentiments that we´ve been seeing.”

“I also think the Republican party has really used this in a political way that I think is unfortunate.

[Senator and former RNC co-Chair Mel Martínez] who actually is a decent guy. He’s a decent person. Obviously, he has a different political philosophy than I do. He was increasingly uncomfortable being the head of a party that is trying to use the immigration issue to scare people.”

“I think [immigration raids are] all for show and it doesn’t solve the problem. We have twelve million people who are undocumented in this country. The notion that we are going to solve that fifty people at a time is dishonest. So, I have been very clear about what my policy will be. We will strengthen the Border Patrol because as I said I think a nation-state has the right to control its borders. We will work on an employment verification system that is not discriminatory but that actually holds employers responsible. I am less interested in arresting workers who are just trying to make a living for their families. You do have employers who are exploiting workers. And I want to provide a pathway to citizenship for those who are here. I also want to reform the legal immigration system because the backlog is so serious that is actually putting more pressure and pushing more people into the underground.”

On Relations With Latin America

Number one, I think that it is important for us to figure out how do we structure trade with Latin America in a way that is good for workers on both sides of the border and not just corporations and that means making sure that all the trade agreements that we have are abiding by International Labor Organization standards and basic environmental and worker safety standards. I think that if you look at Nafta, as an example, that has provided some benefits to economic growth on both sides of the border but Mexican farmers, for example, have taken a pretty bad hit. And alot of the immigrant pressure has to do with displaced workers in the agricultural sector in Mexico.

On Black-Latino Relations

“Look, there is a long history in this country of pitting groups that are dispossessed against each other. When African Americans and Latinos typically make progress it is because they join ranks. … African American civil rights helped to empower Latinos. Cesar Chavez’s movement helped to remind people of basic issues of justice and equity. That is how we are going to make progress. In order for us to continue that cooperation, we have got to have leadership on both sides that is willing to fight for all people not just some people. “

Read here about his weekend in Los Angeles.

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Barack Obama had a busy agenda wooing Latino voters on the West Coast over the weekend.
On Saturday he spoke to about 200 students, teachers and other supporters at a town-hall tyle meeting held Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, the school portrayed in the movie “Stand and Deliver.”
Obama criticized California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for vetoing a bill last year that would make illegal immigrant students who graduate from high school eligible for aid for college. A similar bill, known as the Dream Act, is pending again this year.
If elected, Obama promised increased funding for schools and early childhood education. “It’s time to stand up deliver for America’s urban poor,” he said, in reference to the film, that starred Edward James Olmos as a math teacher who succeeded in teaching calculus to a group of poor Hispanic students.
As president, his first act would be to call a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and tell them to “get our troops out of Iraq,” he said.
Obama also made a whistle stop in Nevada, where Federico Peña, former energy and transportation secretary under President Clinton, launched Nevada Latinos for Obama.
The grassroots movement is aiming to muster up support for the senator for the Jan. 18 caucus.
“With Obama, the Latino community sees someone committed to providing real solutions to improve our education system, comprehensively reform our immigrations laws and respond to the community’s health care needs,” Peña said.
- Christina Hoag

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