$20 Million For Hispanic Superdelegate's Vote...That's It?

05/11/08- Hispanic Superdelegate Steven Ybarra, a California Democrat, publicly stated last week...he'll support either Obama or Hillary depending on whichever candidate provides $20,000,000 to register Hispanic voters.

  The following is by David Pena, a partner at Opinion Strategies, an Austin based political consulting firm
 

The exact dollar amount is probably off. Voter registration efforts are extremely labor intensive.  $20 million (divided nationally) is not enough to cover rural agricultural areas of the U.S. (e.g. mushroom farms outside Philadelphia, apple orchards of Western Washington state, citrus groves of Texas & Florida, rural Oregon, poultry chicken plants of North Carolina, slaughter houses of the mid-west, etc.). In these areas migrant workers have given birth to US citizen children eligible to vote and are in dire need of ENFRANCHISEMENT.
 

I know for a fact that Obama nor Clinton nor McCain have an effort to reach these disenfranchised migrant workers -- maybe some exceptions out there (please correct me, would love to be proven wrong!).
 

Texas alone is massive, over 2.1 million resident where born in some Latin American country...Among people at least five years old living in Texas in 2006, 34 percent spoke a language other than English at home. Of those speaking a language other than English at home, 86 percent spoke Spanish and 14 percent spoke some other language; 43 percent reported that they did not speak English "very well."
 

Fast fact: 1 of 5 Latino voters that showed up on Super Tuesday were 29 years or younger!  Here in Texas (Obama field effort) we got 48% of this population (debunking the myth that Latino voters are in the love with the Clinton brand).
 

Fuel costs alone to reach these young, rural non-registered Latinos will also be prohibitive in light of the price of the barrel of oil. This is where are affluent Democratic friends from S. Texas can help :-)....
 

How about printing costs for materials? Direct mail is also expensive. Getting the latests phone lists -- also expensive. Training Spanish-speaking organizers, not especially expensive but time-consuming.  How about water for volunteers for those hot Texas days?
 

It takes over $1 million for a solid state wide walk program in Texas.  That is a low number and based on a budget for a 1990s U.S. Senate race over a decade ago.  Inflation and the fact that Latinos represent 35% of Texas residents are Spanish-surname in every corner of Texas make $20 million on a national level sound like a bargain!
 

Just put pencil to paper and operationalize a voter registration program and one will soon come to the conclusion that $20 million on a national basis is actually not enough!

By David Pena
Partner, Opinion Strategies
www.opinionstrategies.net