First off, I like to thank Wall Street Journal correspondent Ana Rivas for picking up the recent rift between the Latinosphere and the current outreach efforts by both presidential candidates to the Latino community.

In her blog post (which I, Edmundo “XicanoPwr” Rocha, happened to be mentioned) Rivas writes:

Latino bloggers covering the presidential campaign reacted this week to recent efforts by both candidates with their usual spotting of simplistic stereotypes in the candidates’ outreach efforts, and with a new joint initiative that raises some tough questions — 38 to be precise.

A group of bloggers responded to Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama’s speeches to the League of United Latin American Citizensand the National Council of la Raza, with coordinated posts about a 38-point questionnaire that The Sanctuary, a pro-immigrant group, sent to the presidential candidates last month demanding answers on immigration policy issues. Neither McCain nor Obama has responded to the questionnaire.
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The group effort also highlighted how the candidates cleaned and tightened their rhetoric for their general election campaigns. In a July 9 post, on the third day of the Lulac convention, Roberto Lovato asked for “fewer ‘Si se puedes’ and more of things like ’substancia’, ‘realidad’ and ‘transparencia.’”

“prision” (the exponential growth of the Latino prison population)

“Pentagono” (the multi-billion dollar effort to trick Latino youth into joining the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and other armed forces)

“Muerte, detencion y migrantes” (Immigration issues like the thousands of dead in the desert, death, sexual and physical abuse in ICE detention centers, thousands of raids and other terror inflicted on immigrant children and adults)

“pobreza” (the unprecedented challenge of a country in which the wealthiest 1% has over $2 trillion more than the bottom 90%, according to the Nation magazine. In other words, the candidates won’t be asked in Espanol or en Ingles, “How come the wealthiest 1% have $19 trillion while the rest of us 300,000,000 only have a combined wealth totaling less than $17 trillion?”)

And to top it all off Kety of the Sanctuary (also a board member of the Institute for Progressive Christianity and founder of CrossLeft) has been chosen by our group to be our spokesperson on CNN. She will be appearing live tomorrow (today 7/15) on CNN at 8:24AM.

Score one make that TWO for the Latinosphere. Like I said, it is time to stop the rhetoric and the “Mariachi Politics.”

Neither McCain nor Obama has yet to respond to our questionnaire. ¡Ay te watch-o, cucaracho! The clock is ticking, tick tock tick tock.

Related posts

• Score Another for The Latinosphere (3)
• Obama Campaign Responds To Immigration Reform Survey While McCain Campaign Remains Silent (9)
• Denver Day Two: Not So Strange Anymore (1)
• XP’s Register to Vote PSA (1)
• Will the Real John McCain Please Stand Up (4)

Tags: Barack Obama, blogosphere, CNN, Elections, Immigration, John McCain, Latinos/as, The Sanctuary, Wall Street Journal |  Print This Post |
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