Richardson Targets Hispanic Vote – Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson started a Hispanic outreach program Thursday to try to raise his profile with a voting bloc critical to his campaign. ’Because my name is Richardson, many Latinos don’t know I’m Latino,’ the New Mexico governor told reporters in Spanish after a news conference announcing the effort. He sometimes jokes about adopting his mother’s maiden name: Lopez. But Richardson, who would be the first Hispanic president, is open about the truth behind the humor. As an underdog candidate who needs to run strongly in heavily Hispanic Nevada, he needs every Hispanic vote he can muster. Washington Post, online.
TV ratings change highlights Hispanic power – The Hispanic audience’s growing power in US television was confirmed Monday when Nielsen, the ratings group, said it would scrap a segregated system for measuring viewers and include Latinos in its main tally. The decision is a victory for Univision, the US’s largest Spanish-language broadcaster, and Telemundo, a rival network owned by NBC Universal, which had been lobbying for the change. MSNBC, online.
Que pasa with Latinos and MLS? – Organized by World Cup veteran and current Major League Soccer Fan Development manager, Wilmer Cabrera, the MLS Latin American Advisory Board met for the first time this year in July. The panel is an MLS-sponsored initiative to bring key members of the Latino soccer community together to work on improving the league’s outreach to Hispanics. For Balboa, the need for such a group was clear. Some of the most crowded, lively games in America are those that appeal to the Hispanic fan. “Look at how many Hispanics there are in the United States that follow the game of soccer. You have to start doing something. Look how the response has been when the Mexican team comes here.” US Soccer Players, online.
Gonzales’ story ends painfully for some Hispanics – Alberto Gonzales’ rags-to-riches personal story and his appointment as the nation’s first Latino attorney general earned him a place in history and the respect of up-and-coming Hispanic leaders. And his long, hard fall, culminating in his resignation Monday, brought disappointment, resentment and embarrassment to some Hispanics. In the end, though, Hispanics who found fault with Gonzales did so for the same reasons other Americans did. ’This long ago quit being anything to do with ethnicity and simply became a situation of people of all ethnic groups believing he was incompetent and it was time for him to go,’ said Jerry Polinard, chairman of the political science department at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, an expert on Hispanics in politics. Houston Chronicle, online.
GOP Will Woo Minorities, but Can It Work? – ’It’s up to our party to make sure we reach out to all citizens, particularly minorities, to talk about those issues,’ Mr. Henry said. ’The message is faith, family, freedom and economic opportunity. These are the things we can all come together on. … The Hispanic community should be Republican. But it’s going to take work. It’s going to take a real commitment by our elected officials and our grass-root volunteers.’ But some Democrats don’t see Republicans as serious suitors for black and Hispanic votes. ’The idea of Republican outreach to minorities is laughable,’ said Hector Nieto, a spokesman for the Texas Democratic Party. ’You have pocketbook issues that directly affect minorities, and Republicans have consistently voted against them. Minorities are not going to be fooled by Republican rhetoric. They’re going to see the truth, and we’ll be there to point it out for them.’ Hispanic Business, online.
Federal employers make pitch for Latino workers – At 20, Rudy Rodas is looking at a bright future. The bilingual business major, who expects to graduate with honors from George Washington University next May, is the kind of candidate that prospective employers fight over. The federal government hopes to win the battle for his services with the help of a new campaign launched to solve an old problem: Hispanics are the only ethnic minority still underrepresented in the federal work force, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. ’It’s something that’s been an issue for decades. What’s really new is we’re using more media and broadening our approach toward recruitment,’ office spokesman Ken Oliver-Mendez said. Houston Chronicle, online.
Number of people without health insurance continues to grow – Altogether, the number of uninsured nationwide increased 4.9 percent, from 44.8 million to 47 million. The ranks of the uninsured increased across all demographic groups — including Hispanics, blacks and whites. Experts say the increases are likely to have grim repercussions on many sectors — from hospitals that will see bad debt continue to rise to the premiums of employees who do have insurance as providers shift costs of those who can still afford to pay. ”This means more disease and more cost,” says Steven G. Ullmann, a health economics professor at the University of Miami. The key factor is that the uninsured tend not to have a regular primary care doctor and often get extremely sick before they “use the most expensive care, which is emergency rooms.” Miami Herald, online.
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