There was quite an immigrants' rights march in Seattle yesterday. I hated to miss participating, but I had to work.
According to the Seattle Times, police estimated the number of demonstrators at 25,000, "far more than organizers had predicted."
Police estimates are known to be conservative. I have not yet heard from my friends who marched. It might be that the number was higher.
But what caused the number to be "more than organizers had predicted?" One answer might surprise you.
Talk radio? Sure, why not? But
I am not the audience, that is, until I learn Spanish well enough to listen.
One of the best bloggers in Seattle is Michael Hood, whose blog Blatherwatch monitors the local talk radio scene. Blatherwatch does us all a great service. After all, its slogan is "listening to talk radio so you don't have to."
Blatherwatch pretty much deals with local radio, but even so, Michael's posts can be applied to industry trends.
So it is with today's post, talk radio flexes new muscle- in Spanglish. It starts out with . . .
The unprecedented anti-immigration policy demonstrations across the country Monday and last week's in LA are a new and impressive show of talk radio as a political power tool.
. . . and goes from there. Michael lays out all the background and many of the political implications.
But one point is quite clear. Immigration is, and will continue to be, an overriding issue for Latino voters. But there are also war, peace, public health, education, the right to organize, public safety, and every other issue that affects every other voter.
If talk radio can be used as a political organizing tool for Latino voters around immigration, why not for everything else?
And if we do not seize the opportunity while it is there for the seizing, we know who will.