For Hispanics Mr. Obama Still Not Answering Questions
While Senator Obama is making his Middle Eastern and European trip many questions still remain about where exactly he is on issues with Latin America and also Hispanics. Many local businesses in the Rio Grande Valley were concerned when Senator Obama made the statements early in his primary campaign that NAFTA was “devastating” and “big mistake” and that he would unilaterally opt out of NAFTA. Subsequently he stated in Fortune magazine that “Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified” and suggested that he would not abandon NAFTA.
The Miami Herald reports that Obama’s lead Hispanic advisor is Cuauhtemoc ”Temo” Figueroa, a Mexican American with a labor-union background, as head of its national Hispanic vote-getting effort in Obama’s Chicago headquarters. Figueroa, whose parents were farm-worker organizers, was a top official of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Recently the well respected former Democratic Hispanic Mayor of Miami, Maurice Ferrer, has been critical of Obama’s opinions and has suggested that other Hispanic influences beside the narrow minded one currently involved with the Obama campaign need to be heard. He further criticized that Obama’s foreign policy advisors have never shown any interest in Latin America. According to the Miami Herald very few Hispanics in the Democratic Party have any access to Obama.
In fact it is interesting that when I went to the official Obama website I found that the blog for Cuauhtemoc ”Temo” Figueroa was completely empty and had only 22 “friends” which in MySpace terms is “lame”. Mr. Figueroa apparently has had very little contact with Hispanic Congressional leaders and did not hold any meetings with them until June of 2008 where he was warned that Obama was in trouble with Hispanics according the Hill.com According to the Press-Enterprise Mr. Figueroa grew up in California and then became a long time Chicago political union figure. His plan for recruiting Hispanics was to “hire” 400 paid Hispanics for major cities in the United States. After the meeting with the Hispanic caucus in June only Representative Loretta Sanchez from California made a public statement for Obama.
Obama has never made any particular policy statements about Latin America or Hispanics. Most recently when he spoke at the La Raza conference he specifically refused to answer questions from Hispanic leaders or the audience in a public forum. He has adopted a scripted only format in dealing with issues.
Hispanic voters and Rio Grande Valley voters are appropriately concerned about where is Mr. Obama on free trade, the border (He voted for the Border Wall), immigration and many other relevant issues. Maybe it is time for Mr. Obama to come home and start answering questions.
Go To Contempo Magazine Home Page
Latin Music at Amazon.com
Subscribe to Contempo Magazine by Email
