Campaign targets Hispanic voters

By Timothy Pratt

Friday, Sept. 12, 2003 | 11:11 a.m.

A new political organization headed by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson -- arguably the highest-profile Hispanic in national politics -- will launch a campaign this weekend aimed at getting out Nevada's Hispanic vote for Democrats in the 2004 presidential elections.

The organization, called "Moving America Forward," chose Nevada as one of four so-called "battlefield states" in the upcoming election. Local observers say it may be the most intensive effort ever aimed at gaining votes from Nevada's largest minority group.

The campaign will spend from $500,000 to $1.5 million during the next year and hire up to 40 staffers statewide, said Joe Velasquez, national director.

"That makes it the biggest proposed project aimed at getting out the Hispanic vote in the history of Nevada," said Tony Sanchez, president of the Latin Chamber of Commerce.

The announcement came days after Monday's unveiling of the Republican team to run the Bush-Cheney campaign in the state in 2004, led by Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval, the first Hispanic elected to a statewide office.

The team said it would target Hispanic voters as part of its campaign.

Richardson and other Democratic political veterans will begin their project this weekend in Las Vegas by training about 150 local Hispanics in the nuances of political campaigns. They hope to hire the staffers from that training for the yearlong get-out-the-vote campaign that will start around December, said Andres Ramirez, local director for the organization.

The project also aims to get Hispanics interested in becoming involved in politics locally, as candidates and staffers for candidates.

News of the project was an eye-opener for several political observers locally and nationally, who said its scale, its timing and its figurehead -- Richardson -- make it a sign of the growing importance of the Hispanic vote in today's America.

The effort also underlines the importance of Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and Florida in the 2004 presidential elections, experts said.

"Basically, it's an announcement that the Hispanic vote is up for grabs," said Ted Jelen, political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Recent polls commissioned by the New Democrat Network, a Washington-based political organization, showed that Hispanic voters are increasingly voting independently of party lines and casting votes based on whether or not they like candidates -- despite a historical tendency to register as Democrats by a two-thirds majority.

Maria Cardona, director of the Hispanic outreach project for the New Democrat Network, said that having Richardson tied to the project was "incredibly important." Before being elected governor of New Mexico, Richardson served eight terms in Congress, was U.S. Secretary of Energy and was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Nevada is one of four states where the project will take place. Together the states offer 47 of the 270 electoral votes necessary for winning the White House. These four states have large and growing Hispanic populations in common and electorates whose political loyalties are difficult to pin down.

"Nevada is one of the battleground states -- it can go either way given its past performance and demographics," Velasquez said.

Jelen said: "As (Barry) Goldwater once said, they're hunting where the ducks are."

The number of Hispanic voters in Nevada is uncertain, but Census Bureau 2001 redistricting figures estimated that 133,000 of the 247,000 Hispanics of voting age statewide may actually be eligible to register -- meaning they are U.S. citizens or residents, Ramirez said.

Of those, about 63,000 are registered to vote, or a little less than half of the total number of people eligible to register. About 66 percent of registered Hispanic voters went to the polls in the 2000 presidential elections, Ramirez said -- within five points of the overall population.

"We are confident that if we can get more of the eligible population registered and out to the polls, they will vote for Democratic candidates," Ramirez said.

Larry Gonzalez, of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials, a Washington-based nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, said that both parties are seeing they must get into key states on the ground to get the Hispanic vote.

"The cookie-cutter approach led from Washington doesn't work," he said.

Pamela Mantis, deputy press secretary for the Republican National Committee and head of the party's Hispanic outreach campaign, said that they are relying on local leaders in Nevada and other states to get out the Hispanic vote.

"We have completely different types of strategies," Mantis said.

"The Hispanic community tends to be socially conservative, which is Republican ... and there's no doubt about it, we'll pick up their votes," she said.

But, Jelen said, the upcoming election probably "is going to be very acrimonious ... and the main thing about the Hispanic electorate is that it's volatile."