Hillary Clinton,along with Tom Tancredo, have both announced that they will be skipping the Univision debate, and i believe i know why she decided to do so.
As you well know, Hillary has to run everything through her dozens of advisers and pollsters before she takes a stand on something,and the decision to reject the Univision debate was probably made after careful discussion on whether this is good or bad for her to go debate in Spanish.
Now, when i first read this news,my first thought was that she's afraid that voters might be angry about debates that aren't in english, but after thinking about it some more, i clearly understood why she rejected this particular debate.
Here's the Clinton's camp reasoning for skipping the Univision debate:
But Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said Wednesday the candidate plans to attend only the six debates sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee from July through January, when the primaries begin. Two of those debates will be simulcast by CNN in Spanish, while the two NBC-MSNBC debates will be rebroadcast in Spanish by the Telemundo network. ABC and NBC are broadcasting the other two forums.
Althought this debate is not sanctioned, i'm sure Hillary could make an exeption for the fastest growing voting bloc in the U.S, no???specially when she's strongly courting their votes..And who says a debate has to be sanctioned to attend??
Now, Chris Dodds and Bill Richardson have already jumped on the opportunity to court Hispnics voters during the Univison debate
Democratic presidential hopefuls Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd have agreed to participate in a candidate debate in September that’s to be conducted in Spanish.
Univision Communications Inc., the nation’s largest Spanish-language broadcaster, has invited candidates to a debate planned Sept. 9 at the University of Miami.
"Latinos are the fastest-growing segment of our population and this is a unique chance for all of the candidates to hear and address the concerns and priorities of this important constituency," Richardson said in a statement Wednesday.
Richardson, who is fluent in Spanish, is the nation’s only Hispanic governor. He was born in California, but spent his early childhood in Mexico City.
Dodd, a senator from Connecticut, also is fluent in Spanish. He lived in the Dominican Republic while serving in the Peace Corps.
"The next president needs to be someone who can speak to this important segment of our population, and those within our same hemisphere, on issues from immigration to education to foreign affairs," said Dodd.
Those 2 have an advantage because they both speak spanish and are definately looking to WOW Hispanic voters with their Spanish.
Bill Richardson will have a huge home court advantage and if he can't ace this debate,then forget it.
Now, let me explain to you carefuly why Hillary and her advisers don't want to debate on Univision and a lot of it has to do with Bill Richardson and Latino voters...Stay with me.
As you well know this by now, way before Obama even jumped into the race, the Clintons's master plan was to create a firewall with the Black votes which would protect them from a bad showing in Iowa and NH....They knew that Edwards and the other contenders had zero credebility among black voters and even if Edwards had won Iowa, he would have had a tough time in states with large African American votes.
This is the case in South Carolina where the black votes constitute of almost 50% of the democratic electorate.The Clintons knew that with the popularity of Bill Clinton among black voters,it would be hard for a non-black candidate to challenge them...
Now that Obama has long jumped into the race,the Black votes is in play because Obama is the most credible Black politician to ever run for president....When Jesse Jackson ran in '88,black voters knew very well that he didn't stand a chance, but they still voted for him because of "ethnic pride".
I strongly believe that when the smokes clears out, Obama will get a strong majority of the Black votes and polls after polls are starting to show the black votes silently exiting the Clinton's house.
According to many experts, the fight for the black votes is "even" as of right now with Hillary and Obama duking it out,and if the election took place today, Hillary chances of a narrow victory among black voters would be good, but South Carolina primary is about 7 months away and
some polls are showing movement toward Obama
The Clinton/Obama race continues to be a relatively tight one as more African Americans in Florida begin to drift towards Senator Obama
I expect Obama to compeltly lock up the black vote by the time South Carolina cast their ballot in 7 months...There is no reason why this movement will come to an abrute end, specially once Obama raises his profile in the black communities with dozens of ads and other stuff to court their support.
Here's the numbers among black voters in this Florida poll:
Clintons:26.3 Obama:52.6 Edwards:15.8
Now, the Clintons understands that 'ethnic pride" inside the African American community will hand Obama a huge advantage...They know that their firewall with the black votes will eventualy crash in flames because of Obama being the first electable black lawmaker in history and it will be extremily hard for a black man/woman to cast a vote against a man that would not only make history but also make millions of African Americans proud..
Ethnic pride will be tough for the Clintons to defeat, and i believe that they will bow out of the race for the black votes i january once it's clear that Obama will get the majority of the black votes
Now,with Nevada caucus scheduled after the Iowa caucus, the Clintons have decided to draw up another firewall, this time around,the Latino votes will be their target.
Hillary has already received the endorsements of big time latino lawmakers in California.Villaraigosa, the mayor of L.A also endorsed her along with Fabian Nunez, the speaker of the house...Those 2 are heavyweight in the Latino community.
Here an example on how hard they are pushing to create this new Latino firewall
This memmo claims how powerful Hillary's poll numbers are among Hispanics, but everyone knows that Hillary has no History or credebility with the Hispanics community...Is she well known?? YES,she served 8 years as the first lady in the White House, so of course she's well known among latino voters.Her name I.D is about 100% which helps her poll numbers, specially when your rivals name I.D aren't quite up there yet.
I'm pretty sure Latino voters don't even know who Obama is,and even Richardson is polling worse then Obama.A huge majority have never seen Richardson before..This right there tells you that Hillary leads among Hispanics is not real..Those Ltino polls are like an 'American Idol poll'...I don't buy it that Hillary is loved in the Hispanics community.
Now, going back to the Univision debate...Now why would Hillary skip the Univison debate???..Because Richardson is Latino and this debate will offer millions of Latino their first glance at Bill Richardson...Latino are as proud of their heritage as African Americans, and do you think for a minute that the Clintons aren't thinking what i'm thinking?
The Black firewall is crashing down because black voters finds it very hard to vote for a white woman when they could make history with Obama....Now, you have Richardson and Univison trying to fuck up the Clintons second firewall.
The Clintons worse nightmare is the Univison debate with Richardson speaking spanish and woohing Latino watchers...I have no doubt in my mind that this debate will raise Richardson profile among latino voters and the Clintons can't have that...Univison is the most watched station among latinos and is currently ahead of FoxNews, MSNBC and CNN as far as numbers of viewers...This has got to be a huge problem for the Clintons.
If Richardson give her a strong fight for the Latino votes, then her only reliable voting bloc will be women and nothing else.
She was expected to win Nevada even if she didn't put up a strong showing in Iowa, but things could change with Richardson trending up in the national polls.
By skipping the Univison debate, the Clintons are hoping that Obama will also skip it and this debate will become as irrelevant as the FoxNews debate.
BUT if Obama is smart, he should NOT skip this debate and make it tough on Hillary...I just hope that Obama doesn't follow her lead..She desperatly needs him to follow her lead and cancel out this debate because Richardson will have a strong home court advantage that could put her Latino firewall in jeopardy.
Obama needs to understand that a stronger Richardson that could siphon off Latino votes away from Hillary is good for him and would diminish her strong lead in Nevada,California,NY,NJ,TX,CO and Arizona.....If Richardson can pull it off,then she's cooked and this is why she wants this Univison debate off the table
Can you imagine how bad it will look for Hillary if all candidates shows up to debate on Univision and court Hispanic votes while Hillary is a no show??...Obama could put out a press release for Latino TV stations stating that Hillary doesn't care about Hispanics problems or something around that line that would not sound too offensive.
Anyway, what do you think??