Going all out for Hispanic votes

By J. Patrick Coolican

Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007 | 7:17 a.m.

On a recent Saturday, freshman Assemblyman Ruben Kihuen walked his northeastern Las Vegas district and showed why his presidential endorsement, which recently went to New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, was so prized by the campaigns.

He was dressed in his usual crisp-collared shirt and pants, hair slicked, and seemed to know everyone in his district as if they were family. It was all hugs and high-fives, and "Look at our boy Ruben."

At one home, Kihuen, the first immigrant elected to the state Legislature, reminded Victor Reyes that he must show up - and show up on time - Jan. 19 or his vote won't count. He offered Reyes a ride if he needs one and gave him his cell phone number. Reyes, in turn, signed a pledge card, which the campaigns use to track dedicated supporters.

Kihuen visited Esperanza Solorio, whom Kihuen prizes as an ally because she's an active community organizer, even if she's not a citizen.

"This is my second mother here!" he exclaimed as they hugged. She invited him into her home, and though she couldn't sign a pledge card, she promised to help him find people who could.

If only the Clinton campaign could clone Kihuen.

But for all his skills, he can do only so much.

The key to winning the Democratic caucus will be precinct-by-precinct organizations, and each of the major campaigns is busy building them to reach the 45,000 or so registered Hispanic voters, as well as the tens of thousands who are unregistered and could provide an enormous surprise asset on caucus day.

A Democratic operative who is neutral and didn't want to be identified but is watching the campaign closely said the surprise so far has been the doggedness of the campaign of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in its pursuit of Hispanic voters.

More than half of the Obama staff in the campaign's North Las Vegas office, from which much of the Hispanic outreach flows, is bilingual.

Obama's people have been particularly ambitious in their workplace effort, which, they say, is often the best place to reach Hispanic voters. So at construction sites and hotels and other places where Hispanics have a significant presence, they have recruited work-site leaders to help organize and gather information from co-workers. The campaign has also identified work-shift changes and approached employees when they leave, including the 4 a.m. shift change.

Although the campaign doesn't say so explicitly, some of those workers are members of the Culinary Union. The Culinary will endorse a candidate after the Iowa caucus Jan. 3, and its endorsement is seen by many as determining the outcome in Nevada.

(Culinary's political director, Pilar Weiss, said the members have been exposed to all the candidates and she's confident that when an endorsement is made, members will hang together.)

Obama also has a special canvassing program targeting Hispanic households with a higher-than-average propensity to vote. Canvassers are generally told never to enter a home. But with this program, the canvassers try to get inside and talk at length with the voter to develop a deeper level of engagement.

Paul Lopez, a 29-year-old Denver city councilman and a rising star in politics there, was in town recently for a weekend of this intimate canvassing.

Asked about the best way to reach Hispanic voters, he pointed to his shoes. Door to door and face to face are the best ways to sell a message, Lopez explained, which means Hispanic voters are like everyone else, according to research by Donald Green, a Yale University political scientist. He's shown that these interactions are the most effective tools in increasing a candidate's vote total.

The Obama campaign began advertising on Spanish-language radio over the summer and will return to the airwaves soon. The campaign is also into new media avenues, such as Spanish-language social networking sites and Spanish text messaging. Because these tools are so new, it's not clear how meaningful they are.

The Clinton campaign is also pouring resources into its Hispanic outreach. A stunning one-third of all paid organizers, for instance, are bilingual, according to the campaign, which also began advertising on Spanish-language radio recently.

The campaign has been meticulous in selecting its locations for events when Clinton is in town, with rallies at Canyon Springs High School and a house party in a deeply Hispanic neighborhood on the east side. Clinton has also brought in big-name surrogates for mobilizing volunteers, including Raul Yzaguirre, former president of the National Council of La Raza; Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; and New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez.

The Clinton camp has also hosted dozens of Spanish-language events to educate caucusgoers, including one attended by 75 people at the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce. Its precinct captain training also includes bilingual breakout sessions.

Although former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards doesn't have the money or the staff of his rivals, he's leveraging his deep contacts in the labor movement for help with Hispanic voters.

Ruben Zuniga, a member of the 12,500-strong carpenters union, which endorsed Edwards, is a precinct captain who works three hours a day after work, four days a week. Asked to explain his level of commitment, he replied, "This is my life, brother. You gotta understand this. This is life or death for me. It puts food on the table for my family. I'll go all out."

He said Hispanic voters he talks to care about health care and "backing the working man."

"The fact that he's going to back us up, that's it," Zuniga said. "That's all they care about."

Edwards also has some talented paid organizers who are bilingual.

Andres Mantilla, for instance, works 14-hour days and has spent the past six months helping the campaign do the arduous work of building an organization with reach in the Hispanic community.

For the Democratic Party, these efforts are a great gift that will help drive up the caucus turnout, and the Hispanic turnout in particular. And on that much is riding: The Democratic National Committee chose Nevada as an early presidential voting state because it wanted a state more diverse than the nearly entirely white Iowa and New Hampshire.

In the 2004 election, Hispanics made up 13 percent of the eligible voting-age population in Nevada, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a think tank. (Nevada is nearly 24 percent Hispanic, but many of those residents aren't eligible to vote because they are too young or they're not citizens.)

About 11 percent of Clark County registered voters are Hispanic. Democrats and labor unions have tried to increase Hispanic turnout every election cycle, achieving modest, incremental successes.

The struggle to make sure these voters get to the caucus isn't unique to Hispanics, said Kirsten Searer, a state party spokeswoman. All voters are dealing with caucus rules that are unfamiliar: No absentee voting, no early voting, one location, one date, one time. (Just to review: 11:30 a.m. Jan. 19. To find your caucus site, go to http://www.nvdemscaucus.com/ or call 737-8683.

To ease confusion, the state party is looking for 200 volunteers to act as interpreters, and at 440 of the more than 1,700 precinct caucuses the party is distributing dual-language literature.

"The message we're trying to get out is that it isn't an intimidating process," Searer said. "We'll help people find their caucus, and they just need to show up on the morning of Jan. 19. We're confident the caucus will reflect the diversity of the state."