Univision Goes Mainstream With Democratic Debate - Decision 2006 News Story - WTVJ | Miami Univision Goes Mainstream With Democratic Debate

POSTED: 11:10 am EDT September 9, 2007

MIAMI — For the first time in a U.S. presidential campaign, candidates vying for the Democratic nomination will take part in a debate Sunday that will be broadcast across the U.S. in Spanish.

The event, held at the University of Miami and broadcast by the Univision Network, marks the Democratic candidates' recognition of the growing political muscle that the country's more than 44 million Hispanics could wield in the 2008 election.

Just a reminder—millions of those Hispanics are legal immigrants who can't vote, although they're frequently registered to vote, because of Motor Voter laws. Millions more are illegal immigrants, who really not allowed to vote, although since many states give them Driver's Licenses, they too are registered to vote in many jurisdictions.

Then there are Hispanic American citizens, fewer than half of whom bother to turn up and vote.

Furthermore, the Hispanic vote is reliably Democratic, in spite of all Karl Rove's sincerest pandering. And the Hispanic vote is only concentrated in a few states, which are going to go Democratic anyway.

NBC quotes Harry Pachon of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute

"You used to talk about California, New York, Florida and Texas. This marks that there is now a national Latino presence, rather than a regional presence."

Yes, there are Hispanics all over the place, but in fact those are the states where they're concentrated enough to be an electoral force, and those states aren't in play.

I suppose the reason the Democrats are pandering to Hispanics is because they like pandering. Now, if the Republicans would only respond by pandering to nativists...