DCCC Spanish-language Radio Campaign

Spoke to Kyra Jenning, southern regional press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who provided some additional information about the radio campaign. The DCCC bought the sponsorship of news, traffic and weather segments on over a dozen Spanish-language radio stations that transmit in the Congressional districts represented by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and his younger brother Mario Diaz-Balart. According to Jennings, the DCCC campaign is running as a sponsorship with a script voiced over by the announcer.

Similar radio ads in English first ran in eight Republican congressional districts before being expanded to Spanish and the three Cuban American Republicans in South Florida.

Below you can find an excerpt of the press release, which spells out the Spanish-language text and translation of the traffic and weather segment sponsorship ad against Republican Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart. Similar ads will run against his younger brother and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

“El Presidente Bush en contra de los niños estadounidenses. El Congresista Diaz-Balart tiene que tomar una decisión entre el seguro médico para 10 millones de niños o en continuar su apoyo a Presidente Bush, quien esta dispuesto a quitárselos. Dígale a Lincoln Diaz-Balart que escoja a nuestros niños.”

English Translation:

“President Bush versus America’s kids. Congressman Diaz-Balart has a choice: health care for 10 million children or continue to stand with Bush to block it. Tell Lincoln Diaz-Balart to choose our kids.”

I will post the audio of the voiceover as soon as I receive it.

SCHIP

A Latino take on the GOP Debate

I didn’t watch the Republican debate. I read the transcript. Better that way, I think.

And I read it with a focus on economic issues that matter to Latinos.

Mike Huckabee struck the first and harshest note

It ends the underground economy that right now makes it so that folks like us end up paying taxes, but drug dealers don’t; illegals don’t; prostitutes and pimps, they don’t. But we do.

Lumping illegal immigrants in the same category with drug dealers, prostitutes and pimps is not likely to win many Latino votes. And his bit about not paying taxes is demonstrably false. Even Tom Tancredo concedes that illegal immigrants pay taxes although too little in his view.

And for every single illegal immigrant family in this country, it costs $20,000 — it costs us $20,000, $20,000 in infrastructural costs. They pay about $10,000 in taxes. You really want to do something to restore the people’s faith in government, do something about illegal immigration, don’t just talk about it.

Tancredo did, however, talk at length about immigration with seven mentions of the topic. More than any other candidate. Leading immigration reform advocate Senator McCain made just one reference to it.

If we’re going to have real immigration reform, we’re going to have to have trust that we will secure the borders.

Giuliani also made exactly one mention of immigration, which was of a slightly different tenor than his comments over the past few weeks.

This country is the leader in the world. When Congressman Tancredo talks about the immigration problem, how about look at it this way: What country do millions of people want to come to? United States of America. What country — I don’t care if they bash us all over the world — what country do they most want to come to? What country do they most want to copy?

No mention of immigration whatsoever from Hunter, Paul, Romney or Thompson.

Plenty of talk about international trade but not a single mention of Nafta, which was curious.

A lot of time was rightly dedicated to middle-class workers but surprisingly no questions were asked that related to small business owners. Hispanics are an entrepreneurial bunch and represent a huge chunk of the growth in small businesses nationwide. It would have been a natural topic of interest

Education, which according to some polls, is the highest priority issue for Hispanics came in for all of two mentions. Senator Brownback suggested keeping married couples together would go a long way towards improving the educational system. And then Giuliani said

I’d like to point out that I think the biggest economic problem we face long term is our education, our K-12 education.
The best and most telling line about immigration came from Senator Brownback

My mother is not an illegal immigrant.

Unintended Consequences of Illegal Immigration

The unintended consequences of illegal immigration are rich in irony. First, social security is bolstered by illegal immigration and now a Connecticut demographer finds Florida will gain a seat in the House of Representatives, after the next Census, because of the state’s “growing number of illegal immigrants.” 

“It’s great news for Florida in terms of getting more power,” said study author Orlando Rodriguez, a demographer with the Connecticut State Data Center at the University of Connecticut. “But it’s not the undocumented immigrants who will benefit. It’s the dominant party that gets the benefit of the extra seats.” That shift, analysts say, is expected to help Republicans in Florida, who control the state Legislature, which redraws district lines when seats are added. The same is true in the border states of Arizona and Texas.“We will have a larger congressional delegation giving us a stronger voice in Congress as our population continues to grow,” said Erin VanSickle, spokeswoman for the Republican Party of Florida.  So the Republicans who oppose illegal immigration actually end up benefiting from it.