Since mentioning Sen. Hillary Clinton’s Hispanic firewall right after the New Hampshire primary, the media discovered it in Nevada and is giving it at least some play for Super-Duper Tuesday, particularly with regard to the 370-lb gorilla that is California (441-lbs if you count superdelegates).
Sen. Barack Obama is taking his campaign to the firewall, but this year’s accelerated schedule hampers him.  Hispanic voters in California (and elsewhere) simply do not know him, particularly when compared to the near-universal celebrity of the Clintons. Dolores Huerta, a co-founder of the United Farm Workers union and one of Clinton’s most prominent endorsers, coined the slogan “si se puede“ with Cesar Chavez in the 1970s and says Obama’s adoption of the slogan as his dog-whistle won’t cut it.
He is counting his general appeal to younger voters working with Hispanics in California as well. Given the historical underperformance of both Hispanics (esp. when compared to blacks) and the young, this seems doubly risky.
Obama is working to become known. Obama’s approach to Hispanics, young and old, gets a big boost from recent endorser Sen. Ted Kennedy. People tend to forget — and the media usually fails to mention — that the Kennedys, especially Ted, are largely responsible for the current immigration system since 1965. Kennedy has hit the trail hard in California and New Mexico for Obama.
Ted is also working the Hispanic media for Obama. Both candidates appeared recently on the popular Spanish-language morning radio show “PiolÃÂn por la Mañana,” which some might be surprised to learn is the biggest radio show in the country.  El PiolÃÂn, a/k/a DJ “Eddie†Sotelo, is (as you might not be surprised to learn) huge in SoCal and was a driving force behind the nationwide immigraion marches of the past few years. He had Ted flack for Obama for 20 minutes in the heart of the morning drive, after a three minute pre-produced bio calling him “the best senator in America.â€Â Ted appeared with Obama on Univision as well.
The Clinton and Obama campaigns have spent close to $300,000 apiece advertising on Univision this week. Obama is concentrating on the L.A. market, while Clinton is spreading it across the state, according to Univision officials.
La Opinión, L.A.’s major Spanish language newspaper, endorsed Obama — the first endorsement in the paper’s history for a primary.
On the ground, long before public attention truned to Super-Duper Tuesday, Clinton has mounted an aggressive absentee/early voter drive.  Tuesday’s L.A. Times/CNN/Politico poll found that Clinton had a major edge with voters planning to vote by mail (53% to 30%), with a narrower lead among those planning to vote in precincts (42% to 34%). Independents can vote in the Democratic primary; Camp Obama is miffed that the state party has been a bit lackadaisical in promoting that fact.
Both candidates are deploying massive organizations for Super-Duper Tuesday, but especially in the Golden State:
Realizing they were heading into not just California but Super Tuesday primaries in Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, which all have large Latino populations, the Obama campaign has made Latino outreach one if its top priorities. The front desk of its Los Angeles headquarters on the ninth floor of an anonymous office building in Korean town has a sign-up sheet titled: “We really need your help reaching out to Spanish speakers.” The list is full. The campaign’s extensive Latino outreach program includes 6,000 precinct captains and 223 teams of 1,500 trained volunteers. They were the first up with Spanish language TV and radio ads, and have placed tens of thousands of phone calls reaching out to Latino households.
And they will need it. Currently Obama trails Clinton in polls of Latino voters 59% to 19%, according to the latest Field Poll of California Democratic likely voters. Overall, Clinton leads Obama 39% to 27%. (FWIW, Rasmussen has the gap at 3% overall and 27% among Hispanics, though his poll has had the CA race tighter than others for a while already. – K)  “I doubt that he can win the Latino vote,” said Mark DiCamillo, head of the poll. “But if he can make it a little more manageable, two to one or less, that would certainly make an impact. He could win California without winning the Latino vote. Narrowing the margin, that is probably what he’s after.”
Clinton is hardly giving it up without a fight. In fact, Obama has a lot of catching up to do with her formidable machine in California. Her campaign has placed nearly 650,000 calls to Latino women  part of the nearly two million they’ve done total, twice as many as the Obama campaign  across the state, 12,000 of them to Latinas in the 37th district. “Most of our outreach is directed to women,” said Michael Trujillo, Clinton’s California field director. “We made the targeted decision long time ago to focus our resources on where we can have the biggest effect and for us that’s women  Latino, African-American, white, Asian. There should not be a woman in this state that we do not reach out to.”
Incidentally, that wave of Clinton phone calls comes courtesy of the “HillStars,” which trained 1,000 members to then train and manage 20 other “Hillary Corps” campaign volunteers each, who in turn will be “contacting 200 voters in their social networks and convincing those people to vote for Sen. Clinton,” according to a Clinton campaign manual.
The San Franciso Chronicle reports that:
The campaign’s target is 4 million contacts with state voters through events like “bring your own phone” parties – in which cell phone-wielding volunteers get together and create their own roving phone banks, talking to voters at night and on weekends, when call times are free.
This is both very 21st century and cost-effective. It is also notable that the HillStars are apparently big in California’s Asian-American community, and that the polling may not be adequately capturing that bloc of voters.
Given the vast landscape of California, let alone the motley collection of states voting on Tuesday, these resources are deployed to targets of opportunity.
Obama is testing his mettle as Unifier in California. His campaign is working places lile Oakland, Berkeley and Marin County because Democrats there tend to fit his voter profile — more educated, younger and blacker.  Though experts debate the black-crown divide, South Los Angeles and Compton have transformed into majority-Hispanic communities and it has caused some degree of friction between blacks and Hispanics. Clinton thinks she might crush Obama in East L.A, but Obama has been stumping there (it may again boil down to Obama’s late start in the Hispanic community).
As previously noted, Clinton has been delegate-hunting north of Los Angeles, working the Hispanic vote in Salinas (the 17th Congressional district) and its adjacent congressional districts. However, it appears that Obama hopes to beat Clinton in the 17th CD by taking the liberals in Santa Cruz.
Both campaigns have to make decisions driven by the byzantine formula for delegate selection on the Democratic side. The more Democratic a district is, the more delegates it tends to have, which could reward the candidate who runs strong in districts where an odd number of delegates are at stake. As nomination maven Rhodes Cook explained to Campaigns & Elections magazine:
“If Obama wins a district 59 percent to 41 percent, and that district has five delegates, Obama stands to win three delegates to Clinton’s two,†he said. “But take a district where there are six delegates. You can win by the same margin and both [candidates] could end up with three delegates apiece.â€Â  ÂÂ
Marc Ambinder adds that it is easier for the “challenger” (e.g., Obama in CA, Clinton in IL) to extract an additional delegate by winning a smaller, odd-delegate congressional district than by trying to winner a larger, odd-delegate congressional district. He also delves a little deeper to show the interplay of the selection rules and demographics:
But wait — if you’re in charge of Obama’s California spending, do you spent, say, $100,000 extra in the 6th Congressional District, which comprises Marin County and Somona County north of San Fransisco? It allocates an even number of delegates — six. Unless there’s a landslide, both Obama and Clinton will get 3, each.
Why not spend that money trying to beat Clinton in the 7th congressional district across the bay — Solano County and parts of Contra Costa counties, where the congressman, George Miller, has already endorsed Obama? CD 7 allocated 5 delegates, an an extra effort there might give Obama one extra delegate.
Moreover, while media coverage of the primaries tends to focus on the cities (the larger the city the more media there is), Al Giordano correctly notes that Obama won the rural vote in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Perversely, the relative lack of rural media — and its relative economy compared to urban media — could make for some cheap delegates for Obama. Indeed, the Obama campaign is looking beyond the big cities to places like Greeley, CO, Tucson, AZ and Las Cruces, NM, for delegates.
It is a decision matrix that tends to make the head swim. Nevertheless, California (even as a proxy for Super-Duper Tuesday campaigning generally) illustrates one of the main themes I have been blogging throughout the campaign — more often than not, the media watches the topline polls, but campaigns use them to help pick the targets for their organization.  Demographics, geography, eligible voter rules, delegate selection formulas, media strategy, and resources available from endorsers all weigh into these decisions.
It would be interesting to see what Obama’s strategy here would be vis a vis the rural/urban divide. The primary reason Democrats have been so viable as a party over the last few decades is because they figured out that they could get crushed in the outlying suburban/rural areas as long as they carried the more heavily populated cities. For Obama to try and siphon delegates in these traditionally ignored areas is a big step and its success or failure will probably determine how future Democratic candidates campaign in the immediate future.
I love tacos.
Oh. That was from the NPR link. You have many many links today.
Hillary loves tacos. Just ask Huma.
I read where Huma was seen conspicuously hungering for a beefy chimichanga recently.
Here it was.
Well, that’s very well-timed, isn’t it?
Wait. There’s a song?
Also, Scarlett Johansson can sing apparently. Maybe I should have known that but I didn’t. Anyway this sounds really nauseating.
It feels kind of third worldy really.
i wish i still had guest blogging privs here.
i havent wanted to write about anything in forever…the ghost blog is pretty much dead.
but….i just…im moved by that. even allahpundit(once the bombdotcom, but no more) said Obama’s speech will go into the history books.
it is…a taste mebbe….of wat JFK was for another generation?
are u guyz really imune to it?
i mean it is totally seductive….the idea that there might be someone that cares more for this country than selfaggrandization, vainity an a will to power?
yah…impossible.
sry for the slip into bathos.
really.
I’m immune. Ok I did go see Cloverfield on the first weekend, so sometimes I succumb, but mostly Barack’s marketing is really not very interesting cause there’s no engagement, especially with respect to actual ideas. The fired up fired up ready to go ready to go always makes me remember his shtick is mostly an embarrassing Lean On Me reprise leading into how his hopeyness and changeyness will make everything more better inside half an hour just like the Huxtables except with special guest Ted Kennedy as the super helpful if sometimes drunk neighbor.
“how his hopeyness and changeyness will make everything more better inside half an hour”
/giggles
but wat if it cud?
It’s just a performance.
Our government at work
I was moved by Obama’s speech and the support of Senator Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy.
This is the passing of the torch from the past into the future and lifts the American Spirit.
Barack Obama embodies that spirit at this critical time in our history.
After 30 years of political party fighting, wasting their time and our money, politicians have left untouched the problems of the nation:
1.They have after the first oil embargo; sent billions of dollars to the Middle East to enrich our enemies. Even the dumbest person would have figured out a way to achieve energy independence long time ago. Not so by this government.
2. They have, during the last 50 years allowed a widening of the gap between the rich and the poor bestowing all kinds of tax loopholes for the institutions and the wealthy.
3.They have let our infrastructure deteriorate and tolerate fatalities from decaying bridges.
4. They have neglected our public education placing us at the lowest rank among the industrialized nations.
5. The have allowed our healthcare system, at the expense of the suffering ill to become a cash cow for insurance, drug and investment companies which now t represent the vultures of our time.
6. They have wasted our tax dollars all over the world and neglected our needs at home.
7. They have engaged in a disastrous economic policy that had deflated our currency.
8. They have conducted a foreign policy that has made enemies out of our friends.
9. They have continued to complicate the tax revenue code, which has become so complex and favors multinational companies increasing the tax burden for the middle class.
10. They have continued to facilitate practices by the investment community that have resulted in damaging this country’s economy only to come to the rescue of the culpable parties after the fact.
11. They failed in their regulatory duties littering the financial landscape with the skeletons of the Savings and Loan debacle of the past to the sub prime crisis of the present. All this at the taxpayer expense.
12. They failed in providing effective intelligence operations to prevent the 9-11 tragedy.
What else can I say of the great achievements of our established and experienced government?
The only impediment to our change for the better is to keep saying: “but this is still the best country in the worldâ€Â. This is still true, for now, but this complacent attitude is what has kept us lately in reaching for the stars (“Per aspera ad astrumâ€Â) and could be the cause or our downfall.
Experience has proven to be a poison for the country. What we need is an antidote for that poison and that antidote is judgment.
We can not afford the Clinton apparatchick in the Whitehouse.
“It’s just a performance.”
so?
hav u read snowcrash happyfeet? do u unnerstand the concept of neurolinguistic hacking?
nishi, it isn’t that we’re immune, really. It’s just that, at least for those of us Of A Certain Age, been there, done that, used the T-shirt to polish the car.
Back off and look objectively for a minute. What we have here is a Detroit machine politician and hanger-on, a half-term Senator with little to show even compared to others at a similar stage. Like the lady said about Oakland, there’s no there there. Who does he know that he could appoint as, say, Secretary of the Treasury, who would know enough about what goes on there not to screw it up? How’s he gonna implement all that changeyness, when I’ll betcha he doesn’t even know where on K street the important guys are? Where’s the horsepower gonna come from? We’re talking about the Presidency, not Chief Magician.
If he blows Hillary! out of the water he will have my eternal gratitude, but the proper way to express that gratitude is to make him Ambassador to France or something, not give him the Oval Office. Cynic that I am, I don’t expect him to make much showing on Tuesday. I could be wrong.
Regards,
Ric
You asked if we were immune so yes is what I said. I read Snow Crash but maybe I should read again. It’s over there I think behind me. Neurolinguistic hacking I get or I think so anyway well actually no idea but I’ll just call it marketing instead, cause I think you have to target that neurolinguistic hacking carefully or it can be counterproductive. Our tools for targeting are still relatively more crude than the tools we have for message-development. Also I don’t think it wears well in a milieu which does not encourage the voluntary suspension of disbelief. It’s easier to sow doubt than belief in America in the year 2008. The Democrats and the media have known this for several years I think.
Obama doesn’t have to deliver changeyness ever. He’s banking on that. The media does that part by doing stories on how Iraq is now a strategic strength and how economists are worried that the economy may be too good and how the world loves us again and how that’s creating problems cause of undercapacity in the tourism industry.
Jose Ribelles is a fucking moron. Must be one of datadave’s cousins.
Jose has a list, JD. That’s cool. But my favorite part is experience = poison. Neurolinguistic hacking for the reals.
Ok I put Snow Crash on the table where I keep things to do. I will reread and pay special attention to the hacking neurolinguistics bits instead of just googling cause mojo already referenced this book this week. I had no idea it was that zeitgeisty.
he doesn’t even know where on K street the important guys are
Heh.
Sorry, Jose. I did not intend to be so overtly confrontational, but you are just such a colossal puff of idiocy that I felt compelled to point that out. I blame it on being forced to live in a hotel. And having to meet with a designer today, and look at samples, and swatches, and travertine, and slate, and paint cards. And, Kyoto.
There’s really a lot to know. Croatia is involved even.
I think this bit is my favorite. cause I can’t seem to think of a government anywhere that has achieved this. maybe someone could help me out here.
hey BRD! I wondered if you’d ever come back. got a postcard about the movie a few months ago. not that I live anywhere near where it was showing, but still. nice to see you again.
I find myself in the unusual, unprecedented position of having to correct Ric Locke.
He’s from Chicago, not Detroit. And as Sean Connery said in The Untouchables, “this town stinks like a whorehouse at low tide.” Also, he didn’t start out in the Machine; he beat the Machine candidate back when he was working Alinsky-esque magic as a “community activist.”
Neither of which negate Ric’s overall points, natch.
John Cusack is from Chicago too. Well, Evanston anyway. He starred in Say Anything.
HF – We, meaning Thuy, liked a Peruvian travertine. But she loved an onyx tile as well. Trim carpenters. Color palates. Indian or African slate? My head. It spins.
Who doesn’t love a trim carpenter?
That travertine stuff is amazingly beautiful where it comes from.
happyfeet,
One of my closest co-workers went to school with the Cusacks. Despite being a rock-solid liberal, she has nothing good to say about them. But I liked him in Say Anything and in High Infidelity, in which he seemed comfy in the schmuck role.
That’s surprising. John seems like an odd duck though. Joan in Broadcast News did like five minutes of teh funny that I will always remember her for – but mostly Say Anything I thought was a title that resonated with Obama’s themes, such as they are.
Say Anything. A Sure Thing. Better Off Dead. None of the above are available on PPV in tje hotel. And it pretty much is teh suxxor when you get up in the middle of the night and have to go to a vending machine. even when I do not comment, you guys are keeping me marginally sane.
That really sounds miserable. Um. If they have 1408 or whatever on ppv, don’t. You can trust me on this.
maggie
Even the dumbest person would have figured out a way to achieve energy independence long time ago. Not so by this government.
That caught my eye also…so I could barely contain the giggles as I read the rest of Jose’s excellent and bodacious listie thingy.
of course the only other proven, reliable energy source that could really take a dent out of our reliance on oil is nuclear.
Does Jose ever wonder why the US hasn’t gone that route??
yeah, I couldn’t really finish it cause my eyes were rolling too much and I was getting motion sick. I’ve just been easily distracted lately.
hey, maybe you have a handy source for illegal immigrant vs. general population crime stats? just noticed DD in another comment section doesn’t think they’re prone to commit more crime. not that I would engage him, but I’m curious if there are actually numbers to support his assertion, cause I’m thinking it’s otherwise given the “source”
Darleen – they are immune from cognitive dissonance.
hf – yeah. it sucks. but it could be much worse. we are fortunate.
maggie – I think the crime rate for illegal aliens is 100 percent. That rate is significantly higher than the rest of the country.
well, yeah, JD, suppose I should have clarified… “other than the obvious” ;p
happyfeet,
I guess High Infidelity would be more for the Clintons.
There you go. Actually that’s the one everyone tells me I have to see but I avoid that author just cause NPR fellates him so much … to be completely off topic right now I’m watching The Host which is some maybe Japanese film that’s supposed to be sort of proto-Cloverfield… I kind of heard that from people so I’m not sure what the relationship is… so far it’s ok.
In college, one of my best friends managed (then bought) the campustown indie music store, so I can attest that Cusack and his buds did a dead-on transplant of Hornby’s book to the US, specifically Chicago (where I have been in every bar in the movie).
I’m guessing it’s the big monster thing.
maggie
I guess a lot would depend upon what you classify as “crime.” As JD points out, they are criminals the minute they cross into here illegally.
If you’re talking about violent or property crimes, its hard to have clear stats because I don’t think it’s formally tracked. In some sanctuary cities they purposely don’t ask legal status.However, every crime an illegal commits is a crime that did NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN AT ALL. It’s especially galling when we get the repeat offenders… criminals that have been deported only to come back and commit yet more crime. Patterico has a category on his site, deport the criminals first. There are some horrendous stories there.
All I know is I handle lots of identity theft, DUIs, vehicular manslaughters, burglaries and grand theft committed by illegals. The county jail has a significant number of people on a Title 18 hold (ICE hold).
And I’m not even counting the gang crime. Several So. Cal gangs are affiliated with the Mexican Mafia.
had forgotten about Patterico’s thing. anyhoo, had tried googling but didn’t really come up with anything but I guess that’s because it doesn’t exist. huh. but dd is convinced that illegals don’t commit crimes because they don’t want to be caught and deported or some stupidity.
oh jeebus, maggie, stupidity doesn’t come close.
why shouldn’t they commit crime with impunity? They just give a false name, get released OR and move to another jurisdiction.
You should SEE the rap sheets…. 5 or more aliases, several SSNs. And there’s always extended family to shuffle them around (many illegals have a legal cousin or someone here).
I get a kick how Obamakennedy hung out in East Los Angeles. Too bad it wasn’t in South Los Angeles, to answer some questions from the African-Americans being ethnically cleansed from the Florence-Firestone area by Mexican Mafia affiliates.
What we have here is a Detroit machine politician
As Karl pointed out, it’s the Chicago machine.
The difference is that the Chicago machine is at least marginally competent.
All in all, if we have to have a Dem President I’d rather have the Chicago Outfit pulling the strings than the Chicoms.
[…] tour of black churches today. The Clintons have to be smarting a bit that Sen. Ted Kennedy has swung his full corpulence behind Sen. Barack Obama. They would not be in this position had the Clinton’s not pursued […]
isnt The Host Korean?
errrmm…my point is, the Yes I Can is a perfect neurolinguistic hack.
it will impact anyone that pegs in the right spot on the vulnerability spectrum.
now…it doesnt work for Loc or happyfeet….perhaps the discriminator is age.
perhaps there is a collection of discrimators.
i think….speeches can be NLHs……JFK’s or Reagans say….but music and visuals makes it much more powerful.
happyfeet is right about Cloverfield…but that was marketed as an ARG (alternative reality game) not a NLH.
we are wired to want to play games…but music and language and visual performance appreciation is hardwired into us too, at an even deeper level.
this kinda goes back to the appearance is all thingy.
Happyfeet – after bringing “The Host” into my house, my family has forbid me from every getting another Asian horror movie. It was the last straw.
Regarding idiotic obama tirade: The only impediment to our change for the better is to keep saying: “but this is still the best country in the worldâ€Â. This is still true, for now, but this complacent attitude is what has kept us lately in reaching for the stars (“Per aspera ad astrumâ€Â) and could be the cause or our downfall.
Good lord, what a dupe. Anyone feel a whiff of The Secret in all this chaginess crap? No plans, just lofty goals and a plucky spirit. I mean, it would explain why so many people are falling for it – how many people bought that stupid book?
oh hey BRD.
i havent seen u in forever and a day.
;)
yah carin, a beautiful suit that we fill with our hopes an dreams.
zactly.
but…doesnt that describe JFK?
Aside from escalating in Vietnam and nutting up over missiles in Cuba, what was the JFK presidency noteworthy for that didn’t happen at Dealey Plaza?
No particular knock on JFK, as his presidency was awfully short, but why exactly is a return to JFKishness supposed to be a good thing? We romanticise him because he was young, good looking and assassinated. Is that what we should want more of?
Pablo – there was that really cool thing JFK said … ask not what your country can do for you … etc.
Funny how his coolest soundbite has become little more than that to the Dems. Of course “we” can’t do anything for our country. Except, of course, fall in line.
[…] you missed the Saturday evening post on the Democratic ground game in California, you clearly had better things to do with your time than I did. But you can read it […]
well…here is my prediction.
if bilary gets the nom, they will select Obama for vp.
check it……16 years of dem control of the white house.
then it is game over.
point, set, and match.
i was right about bird flu, and about saddams faux wmds, and about menchaca/tucker bein a revenge video.
im 3 for 3.
#56
He cut taxes and invaded Cuba, sort of. Maybe BO will cut taxes and invade Cuba too.
Emphasis on the “sort of.”
Or maybe, “It depends on what your meaning of ‘invade’ is.”
nishi
why Obama is NOT JFK
Surely you realize that this isn’t going to be part of the Son of the Return of JFK package, right?
but….Obama is like JFK in other ways….praps he is a new paradigm like JFK was a new paradigm.
he is handsome.
he is runnin a grassroots movement against establishment machines.
he is inspiring voter turnout in untapped segments of the population.
he is inspiring enthusiasm….sadly lackin on this side of the aisle.
coulter an bruce are conformant with hilary’s whitewimmen firewall. praps they will help her get elected.
still an all….wat are the options?
a bilary/obama ticket will crush any republican runnin.
La Opinion and the LA Times are owned by the Chigaco Tribune. That’s why they endorsed Obama.
Secondly, It’s Ted Kennedy who has caused the movement in Obama’s numbers. Hillary can’t campaign with Bill anymore, but Obama can use Ted, Caroline and Oprah.
Yeah, that’s fair. NOT!
Ted is trying to turn Hillary into Hillary Jo Kopechne but it won’t work!
i mean….denyin bilary a return to the WH is better than nuthin.
ima super otaku of a-horror….one of my faves is The Bride with White Hair.
bilary so reminds me of the wholly evil Chi Wu Shuang, the titular head of the Wolf Clan.
it is a kind of siamese twin monster joined at the back.
Well, Pablo. He could still invades Cuba?
Obama has to up his campaign several notches up now with this new developments. He is holding on to the marginal communities in the USA for votes but he is not reaching out to them.