elections

With all of the McCain camp's attempts to link the Obama campaign with domestic terroroism, it has been found that Sen. John McCain has some radical supporters of his own. Mary Jacoby at the Wall Street Journal reported on McCain supporter, John Murtagh, a lawyer for a Catholic priest who led a violent protest on an abortion clinic.

Sen. McCain also has ties with Paul Schneck, a millitant anti-abortion activist who had private meetings with the Senator as far back as last year and was given a VIP pass to attend an event where McCain named Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

And coincidentally Sen. McCain has also repeatedly voted against bill that would protect women and abortion clinics from anti-choice terrorists such as Paul Schneck and those who John Murtagh defends.

Finally, most recently, Sen. McCain sat silently at an event while anti-choice extremist Marilyn Shannon lauded a women curently in jail for shooting a doctor who provided legal abortions.

La estrategia del GOP en cuanto a la comunidad latina no hizo sino causar un efecto contrario: ha empujado el voto latino hacia los demócratas. "En la comunidad latina hay una energía nueva increíble" dijo Simon Rosenberg- fundador de NDN- a NPR. Y esa energía, que sigue creciendo, se aleja más y más del GOP.

En pocas palabras, los resultados alienantes que causó la terrible estrategia anti-inmigrante del GOP dificultan la batalla para Mc Cain por el voto latino. Como si fuera poco, Mc Cain perdió muchos latinos al cambiar de estrategia cuando retiró su apoyo por el proyecto de ley McCain-Kennedy. Y en sus últimas apariciones en importantes eventos latinos (véase conferencia de NALEO y  LULAC), si es que menciona el tema de inmigración, solo se enfoca en el reenforzamiento de la frontera, evitando a toda costa mencionar reforma- algo que obviamente ya no está en sus planes.

Aquí en NDN, nuestro equipo de estrategia hispana estará reportando sobre la conferencia de NCLR en San Diego. Pero mi predicción es que la audiencia latina - a diferencia de como reacciona ante los discursos de McCain- recibirá una vez más a los discursos de Obama de pie.

(Para aquellos que leen en inglés, vean el blog de Simon relacionado a los cambios en la Florida.)

Yesterday on Saturday Night Live, Amy Poehler and Fred Armisen parodied the recent NBA playoff commercials "There Can Only Be One" with their own commercial. As Senator Clinton and Senator Obama respectively, they discussed their view of why they are the best candidates to win the Democratic Primary.

With wall-to-wall coverage of the campaigns for the last fourteen months, SNL, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and Fox News have offered us tremendous comic relief throughout this arduous process.

In 2004 unmarried women left 20 million votes on the table, a number which could have changed the election considering the contingent makes up the largest block of progressive voters in the country. In 2006 they voted 66% to 32% democrat. These women have made it clear throughout this primary season that they have learned from the mistakes of 2004, they are voting in record turn out and they are voting to make a change. A new report released by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner shows that 77% of unmarried women believe the country is moving in the wrong direction and 82% of registered women belive they are certain to vote and vote for democrats.

We have already seen this happening with women delivering the win for Hillary in New Hampshire, making up 26% of the Democratic vote on Super Tuesday and turning out in historic numbers yesterday for the Potomac Primary. Yes, this election is historic in and of itself...the millennial vote is huge, the Hispanic vote is huge, but women are going to be the ones in this election who deliver change for the country!