Clinton makes appeal to Latino voters
Posted: Saturday, January 19, 2008 1:55 PM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones
LAS VEGAS -- In an interview with Spanish-language television network Univision, Hillary Clinton talked about her plans for the economy and made a direct appeal to Latino voters, noting that her campaign manager -- Patti Solis Doyle -- is a first-generation Hispanic-American. "I feel very proud to have worked on the issues that are important to Hispanics and Hispanic families for many years," she said, when the moderator asked her to make her case to Hispanic Nevadans. Clinton went on to talk about her work with Hispanic leaders across the country like activist Dolores Huerta.
"I want to be a president who will work closely with the Hispanic community," she said.
Clinton emphasized her goal of helping families. "Family is the most important institution," she said. "How can I help everybody get more support for the important work of taking care of their families?"
The Hispanic vote is key in Nevada, where Hispanics account for about a quarter of the population, according to US Census data. Univision is the nation's largest Spanish-language network. The senator's responses were translated simultaneously, but as is often the case in live interviews, not every single word was translated.
The senator again slammed the anti-Clinton Spanish-language ads being run by a group of Obama supporters -- which accuse her of trying to disenfranchise voters -- as a "shameless" personal attack and talked about how one of her first jobs in Texas was going door-to-door registering voters. She reiterated her concerns about everyone being able to participate in today's caucuses.
Clinton criticized Bush's economic stimulus plan as "too little too late" and talked about what she would do to help the economy, like freezing home foreclosures, helping people pay for their energy bills and providing unemployment compensation.
For at least the fifth time since yesterday, the senator bashed Obama for a comment he made about the Republican Party having been the party of ideas in challenging conventional wisdom for the last decade or more.
When asked who she thought the Republican nominee would be, the senator talked about the fluidity of that race. "I think they have a very interesting campaign going. They have three candidates who have each won three contests, so they're going to keep going for a while to try to figure out who their nominee will be," she said.
At one moment, Clinton laughed heartily when she was asked whether her spirits fell after the Iowa caucuses. She answered by talking about why she went into public service and her work on behalf of children.
