Whitman Focuses on Hispanic Outreach
Politico reports on Meg Whitman's efforts to reach out to Hispanic voters:
SOUTH GATE, Calif. — Pete Wilson, a former Republican governor reviled by many Latinos here, promised in a May advertisement that Meg Whitman would be as “tough as nails” on illegal immigration.
On Wednesday, less than two months after she won the GOP primary, her campaign for governor will debut a warm-and-fuzzy Spanish-language ad, pledging something different — a plan to create jobs for Latinos.
Whitman is not the only Republican candidate making a serious play for Hispanic votes this year, but she stands out as the nation’s most prominent test case of whether Republicans can project a welcoming message as the party’s dwindling base clamors for Arizona-style crackdowns on illegal immigration.
Her struggle to make inroads with this pivotal constituency, which accounts for one-fifth of California’s electorate, captures in miniature the dilemma facing national Republicans. A hard line on immigration might pay short-term dividends in 2010, yet it might also be a risky gamble against the long-term odds of demography.
No state party understands the downside of that risk quite like the Golden State GOP, which has suffered for 16 years now because Wilson tied his 1994 reelection fortunes to the politically expedient Proposition 187, which would have denied public services to illegal immigrants had a federal judge not ruled it unconstitutional.
Whitman, who is eager to not repeat the mistakes of the past, wants to neutralize the hot-button issue of immigration in the general election by downplaying its relative importance and blurring the contrasts with her opponent’s position.
That’s why about 30 billboards touting Whitman’s opposition to the controversial Arizona law have replaced the border-fence imagery of the primary — and why her new spot on jobs joins an ad about public education that’s been running for two weeks on Telemundo and Univision, the Spanish-language television networks. Whitman’s internal polling shows the two issues Hispanics care about more than immigration are the economy and education.
Whitman went so far as to argue in a recent op-ed for a chain of Spanish-language newspapers that Democratic nominee Jerry Brown “appears to share many of my positions on immigration.” In a two-page ad running in La Opinión — the nation’s largest Spanish-language daily — Whitman’s campaign says both candidates’ positions are the same on the Arizona law, amnesty, driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and sanctuary cities.
“On immigration, Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown are basically in agreement. But on jobs and education, the differences couldn’t be clearer,” the ad’s tag line says in Spanish.
Strategists from both parties agree that Whitman must win at least a third of the Latino vote to stay competitive in this blue state. No one realistically sees her winning a majority, but her flood-the-zone strategy has paid early dividends: A Field poll released in early July found the race a tossup and Brown leading among solidly Democratic Latinos by 50 percent to 39 percent.
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