Obama campaign unveils Spanish-language radio ad
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is out today with his first Spanish-language radio ad, a personal look at his life in which he aims to relate to Hispanic voters.
“Some people have power and connections. But most of us have to make our own way through life. This is true even for the man who could become the next president, Barack Obama,” the ad’s narrator says in Spanish. “He grew up without a father -- raised by his mother with the support of his grandparents. Through student loans and hard work, he graduated from college.
“Obama never forgot his roots. He worked with churches to help families get job training and after-school care for their children. In the state Senate, he passed a law that helped reduce the welfare roles by over 80 percent by helping families to secure jobs,” the narrator states. “And despite the political pressure, Obama has stood with us for immigration reform and spoke out for our veterans.
“It’s time we had a president who understands we all deserve a chance to make our own way,” the narrator says.
You can listen to the ad, which is airing in New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Florida, by clicking here.
Obama’s first ad aimed at Hispanics follows a volley of ads from Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Earlier this month, McCain unveiled an English-language television ad targeting Hispanics. McCain began airing his first Spanish-language radio ad in New Mexico and other states in June and unveiled his second at the beginning of July.
Obama deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand said on a conference call with reporters today that the campaign “will have a very strong presence on both Spanish-speaking and English-speaking airwaves (targeting the Hispanic community) between now and the end, a constant presence.”
And U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., said on the call that there’s a big difference between McCain’s TV ad and Obama’s new radio ad.
“Sen. McCain’s ad speaks to Latinos. I think Sen. Obama’s ad is part of us and speaks with us because he talks about how, from birth to the present, Barack’s experiences have been our experiences,” Becerra said.
Still, Becerra conceded that McCain’s TV ad, in which he talks about Hispanics as “God’s children,” is probably effective in getting Hispanics to consider the GOP candidate. However, he said, when they take a close look at the records of Obama and McCain, they’ll find a big difference and support Obama -- a claim that is backed up by independent polls that show Obama with a wide lead over McCain among Hispanics.
Hildebrand said Obama “has fought for comprehensive immigration reform and never walked away from it.” That’s been a sticking point in the election: McCain was one of the leaders of last year’s failed attempt at comprehensive reform. McCain now says that, because he doesn’t believe Congress will approve comprehensive reform, he supports securing the border first and then tackling other reforms.
Obama has accused McCain of turning his back on comprehensive reform. McCain, meanwhile, says Obama supported extremist amendments that helped kill the comprehensive-reform bill.
Comments:
Posted 09/18/2008 16:00 with
From the Fact Check Desk: Obama’s New Spanish Language TV Ad Es Errneo
Jake Tapper – ABC’s Political Punch Blog
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/from-the-…
“There are some real factual problems with this ad, which is titled “Dos Caras,” or two faces.”
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has launched a new Spanish-language TV ad that seeks to paint Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., as anti-immigrant, even tying the Republican to his longtime conservative talk-radio nemesis Rush Limbaugh.
As first reported by the Washington Post, Obama’s ad features a narrator saying: “They want us to forget the insults we’ve put up with…the intolerance…they made us feel marginalized in this country we love so much.”
The screen then shows these two quotes from Limbaugh:
”...stupid and unskilled Mexicans”
—Rush Limbaugh
“You shut your mouth or you get out!”
—Rush Limbaugh
The narrator then says, “John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote…and another, even worse, that continues the policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families. John McCain…more of the same old Republican tricks.”
First of all, tying Sen. McCain—especially on the issue of immigration reform—to Limbaugh is unfair.
Limbaugh opposed McCain on that issue. Vociferously. And in a larger sense, it’s unfair to link McCain to Limbaugh on a host of issues since Limbaugh, as any even occasional listener of his knows, doesn’t particularly care for McCain.
Second, the quotes of Limbaugh’s are out of context.
Railing against NAFTA in 1993, Limbaugh said, “If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine ‘cause those are the kinds of jobs NAFTA is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I’m serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do—let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work.”
Not one of his most eloquent moments, to be sure, but his larger point was that NAFTA would mean that unskilled stupid Mexicans would be doing the jobs of unskilled stupid Americans.
I’m not going to defend how he said it, but to act as if this was just a moment of Limbaugh slurring Mexicans is not accurate. Though again, certainly if people were offended I could understand why.
The second quote is totally unfair. In 2006, Limbaugh was mocking Mexican law, and he wrote:
“Everybody’s making immigration proposals these days. Let me add mine to the mix. Call it The Limbaugh Laws:
“First: If you immigrate to our country, you have to speak the native language. You have to be a professional or an investor; no unskilled workers allowed. Also, there will be no special bilingual programs in the schools with the Limbaugh Laws. No special ballots for elections. No government business will be conducted in your language. Foreigners will not have the right to vote or hold political office.
“If you’re in our country, you cannot be a burden to taxpayers. You are not entitled to welfare, food stamps, or other government goodies. You can come if you invest here: an amount equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage. If not, stay home. But if you want to buy land, it’ll be restricted. No waterfront, for instance. As a foreigner, you must relinquish individual rights to the property.
“And another thing: You don’t have the right to protest. You’re allowed no demonstrations, no foreign flag waving, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our President or his policies. you’re a foreigner: shut your mouth or get out! And if you come here illegally, you’re going to jail.
“You think the Limbaugh Laws are harsh? Well, every one of the laws I just mentioned are actual laws of Mexico today! That’ how the Mexican government handles immigrants to their country. Yet Mexicans come here illegally and protest in our streets!
“How do you say double standard’ in Spanish? How about: No mas!’”
But even if one is uninclined to see Limbaugh’s quotes as having been taken unfairly out of context, linking them to McCain makes as much sense as running a quote from Bill Maher and linking it to Obama.
Asked for backup as to how Obama could link McCain to Limbaugh, the campaign provided this interview with McCain refusing to condemn the Minutemen from from the Kansas City Star:
Q: Are they a good thing? The Civil Defense Corps, do you think—do they help in the immigration fight, or not?’
A: I think they’re citizens who are entitled to being engaged in the process. They’re obviously very concerned about immigration.’
Q: Are they helpful?’
A: I think that’s up to others to judge. I don’t agree with them, but they certainly are exercising their legal rights as citizens.’
Asked about the “lies” they’re accusing McCain of telling, the Obama campaign provided evidence that McCain in July 2008 told La Raza that he would have voted for the DREAM act, a bill that provides scholarships for the children of illegal immigrants, even thought he earlier in the campaign season said he would have voted against the bill.
Let’s delver further into this.
In the November 2007, Myrtle Beach Sun-News, McCain said of the DREAM Act, which he had cosponsored in the past, “I think it has certain virtues associated with it. And I think other things have virtues associated with it. But the message is they want the borders secured first.”
The newspaper noted that McCain said he’d vote against a temporary worker program, even though he supports the idea. “I will vote against anything until we secure the borders,” he said. “There is no way we’re going to enact piecemeal immigration reform.”
Before La Raza, McCain was asked by a young Latina if he’d support the DREAM Act, and he said, “Yes. Yes.”
The full exchange, however, goes like this:
QUESTIONER: Hi. I’m a part of One Dream 2009 and I am one of the 6 million who either have an undocumented parent or is undocumented and I wanted to know if you would support humanity all around the world and support our Dream Act that we are trying to pass.
MCCAIN: Yes. Yes. Thank you. But I will also enforce the existing laws of a country. And a nation’s first requirement is the nation’s security, and that’s why we have to have our borders secured. But, we can have a way and a process of people obtaining citizenship in this country. And, we cannot penalize people who come here legally and people who wait legally. And so, that’s a fundamental principle on which we have to operate. Thank you.
The Obama campaign also provided a number of conflicting comments McCain has made about offering greater funding for education programs in the No Child Left Behind act, then telling the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in June that he “would fully fund those programs that have never been fully funded,” while not suggesting any greater funding for the bill when he’s talked about education in front of whiter audiences.
That ignored the fact that McCain has suggested reallocating the way the $23 bill for NCLB is spent.
McCain has changed his rhetoric and his emphasis when discussing immigration after almost losing the GOP presidential nomination because of it.
He now says the borders must be secured before anything else happens. And in that, he’s opened himself up to charges of flip-flopping, though the Obama campaign is quoting him selectively and unfairly to make their points.
The greater implication the ad makes, however, is that McCain is no friend to Latinos at all, beyond issues of funding the DREAM act or how NCLB money is distributed. By linking McCain to Limbaugh’s quotes, twisting Limbaugh’s quotes, and tying McCain to more extremist anti-immigration voices, the Obama campaign has crossed a line into misleading the viewers of its new TV ad. In Spanish, the word is errneo.