By Kevin Yamamura - Sen. Barack Obama says he has built a diverse coalition to win the presidency, blind to differences of race, gender or age.
Published 12:11 am PST Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama says he has built a diverse coalition to win the presidency, blind to differences of race, gender or age.

But in California, where Latinos voted Democratic by a 2-to-1 margin in 2004 and are expected to make up a quarter of Tuesday's Democratic electorate, Obama's inability to connect with the Latino community here cannot be ignored.

In statewide polls dating back to April, Latino voters have overwhelmingly favored Obama's main rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton by 3-to-1. It is a major reason Clinton has maintained a double-digit lead over Obama in California.

In a final-week push, Obama is seeking to challenge the numbers. He's expected to dispatch Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., popular among Latinos for his immigrant rights record, to campaign on his behalf in the state.

He's launched a new Spanish-language ad featuring a picture of Kennedy, in which Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., seeks to make the case that Obama's racial background gives him something in common with Latino voters.

"We know what it feels like being used as a scapegoat just because of our background and last name," the campaign's translation of the ad says. "And no one understands this better than Barack Obama!"

With the Tuesday primary looming, Obama still faces numerous challenges with Latino voters, say longtime observers of California politics. Hurdles include his lack of name identification, Latino affection for Clinton and her husband and a less visible platform on health care.

"She has a name, you know, she has a whole legacy," said Angelica Reyes, a 30-year-old financial educator from Santa Cruz. "It's just that a lot of people don't know Barack. She has that legacy with the Latino community. She has the legacy of the Clintons and the name recognition, and that is really hard to compete with."

Reyes last week attended a Salinas rally for Clinton where the New York senator received an endorsement from the United Farm Workers, a labor group co-founded by activist Cesar Chavez.

At the Salinas event, a mariachi band serenaded hundreds in the small Hartnell College gymnasium and supporters held signs reading "América con Hillary." She said she wanted to issue $3,500 tax credits for college students, freeze interest rates for struggling home borrowers and reduce class size. She hardly mentioned her husband, but many voters said he was a major reason they like her.

"I think Latino voters feel like Bill Clinton did do a lot for Latinos," said Maricela Lopez, 36, a Greenfield entrepreneur. "They see that she can do more for us, the Latinos, like her husband did."

President Clinton won 71 percent of the California Latino vote in 1992 and 85 percent in 1996, according to the William C. Velasquez Institute. UFW President Arturo Rodriguez praised the Clintons this week for reaching out, including awarding Chavez the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1994.

Albert M. Camarillo, a Stanford history professor and expert on Mexican American history, said Clinton has tapped into a nostalgia that Latino voters may have for the 1990s. He said that was a particularly prosperous period for Latinos in California, as well as one in which they embraced Democrats because of policies pursued by Republicans considered anti-immigrant.

"You have a younger generation that is less tied to the Clinton legacy, but for their parents, I think it's really hard for Obama to make inroads," he said.

Raphael Sonenshein, a political science professor at California State University, Northridge, said Clinton may also be winning Latino votes because she is viewed as a health care champion and has focused on the economy during her campaign. Both issues, he said, are of critical importance to Latino voters.

Obama has touted his relationships with Latinos in the Midwest. He backs driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, which Clinton does not, and has vowed to pursue an immigration policy with a path toward legalization in his first year in office.

State Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, an Obama supporter and vice chairman of the California Latino Legislative Caucus, said the Illinois senator's low ratings have been strictly an awareness issue. Cedillo suggested that Latino voters have particular hurdles in terms of gaining familiarity with political figures.

"He is new to the political scene," Cedillo said. "You have to examine the Latino electorate in California. There's a huge number of new voters who don't have any engagement, any awareness of the senator from Illinois."

While Cedillo, state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles and labor leader Maria Elena Durazo give Obama strong endorsements, Clinton lined up support early on from Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, the state's two leading Latino politicians.

Both candidates launched ads statewide Tuesday on Spanish-language television. Clinton's 30-second spot notes that millions of Latino families lack health insurance and are concerned about the cost of living.

Obama's ad includes Gutierrez's "scapegoat" argument and features shots of the Illinois senator at a 2006 May Day immigrant-rights rally. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Tuesday he believes the California race is tightening and that much of the television money the candidate is spending in Los Angeles is aimed at Latino voters.

During a Capitol event for Obama, Cedillo brought up the question of whether Latino voters may be disinclined to vote for Obama because he is African American, calling such perceptions "slanderous."

Not everyone agrees.

Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, said there are many reasons Latino voters prefer Clinton, including familiarity and the Clinton history, but that racial tensions in cities may also be a factor.

"Part of the tension we see, especially in Los Angeles, whether in gangs or prisons, in housing markets or competing for jobs, spills over when there are African American and Latino candidates vying against each other or even in a race like this where there's an African American against a name who conjures up good times," Regalado said. "Some of that is there."

Obama has tried to tamp down the racial divide during his campaign.

After winning the South Carolina primary, he said, "When I hear the cynical talk that blacks and whites and Latinos can't join together and work together, I'm reminded of the Latino brothers and sisters I organized with and stood with and fought with side by side for jobs and justice on the streets of Chicago. So don't tell us change can't happen."

Elsa Gomez, 38, a Santa Ana tax accountant and a daughter of a father who worked as a seasonal guest worker under the old bracero program, voted for President Clinton but said she plans to back Obama in the primary.

"Hillary has the experience, but Obama is more in tune with the people. He is a minority. He understands issues important to minorities."