Hugo Chávez Watch IV

I’ve been remiss in listing the past couple of mentions by presidential candidates of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

Senator Barack Obama mentioned Chávez in an interview with a Venezuelan reporter for La Opinión this past weekend. He reiterated his willingness to talk to Chávez.

Governor Bill Richardson, in yesterday’s Latin America policy address, was the first candidate to refer to Chávez as something more than a straw man or a political bludgeon with which to beat one’s opponents. Richardson laid out a substantive position in some detail:

We need to take leaders like Chavez seriously, not because they are truthful — they are not. We need to take them seriously because they are tapping into real resentment against us, and then amplifying it for their own purposes. Across the world, the Bush foreign policy has intensified anti-Americanism and played into the hands of our worst enemies.

The Bush administration’s short-sighted, clumsy diplomacy has helped leaders like Chávez and Castro create an axis of anti-American nationalism across the region. With the benefit of Venezuela’s oil wealth, Chávez has forged ties with leaders such as Evo Morales in Bolivia and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. These four countries — Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, and Nicaragua — have formed a trade agreement that seeks to exclude and undermine US influence in Latin America. Chávez is reaching out to long-standing US partners such as Argentina. His trade and economic development proposals are filling the void left by our bankrupt leadership in the region. In recent years, Venezuela has purchased more than $5 billion worth of Argentine government bonds and other debt relief instruments. A few months ago, Argentina’s President Nestor Kirchner met with Chávez and Evo Morales in Bolivia, where progress was made on a deal to ship more than $15 billion worth of Bolivian natural gas to Argentina.

The Chávez method of “checkbook diplomacy” extends to the aid he provided to Peru following that country’s catastrophic earthquake in August. Hundreds of people were killed … thousands more displaced. The nation looked to the US for help. And yet, it was Venezuela that responded with more aid than the Bush administration.

We handed Chávez yet another public relations coup in the region.

I focus on Hugo Chávez not because he is the disease in Latin America, but because he is yet another symptom. The disease is arrogance.
Hugo Chavez
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Richardson’s Latin America Policy Address

A few hours after President Bush’s Cuba speech at the State Department, Governor Bill Richardson spoke at UCLA and offered the most detailed proposal of Latin American policy by any presidential candidate thus far. I don’t know that it will win him many votes in Iowa but it can’t hurt with the Hispanic voters who still have close emotional ties with Latin America. (The number of Hispanics who fall into that category is the topic of a Pew Hispanic Center study to be released tomorrow at noon.)

The premise of the speech was:

“George Bush’s cowboy diplomacy has not just led us to ignore urgent challenges in our own region, but has alienated our friends in this hemisphere.

As was so evident when Mr. Bush toured Latin America last March, anti-Americanism is growing at an alarming rate across the region. Through neglect we have turned many of our natural allies into fair-weather friends and outright enemies.”

The President once vowed to treat Latin America ”not as an afterthought, but as a fundamental commitment.” But, despite Latin America’s economic and national-security importance to the United States, he has neglected to engage the region.

…This policy of negligence is dangerous, and it cannot continue. We need bold action to repair the damage.

Richardson’s “bold action” includes diplomacy, which normally isn’t considered terribly bold. The Governor’s proposed Cuba policy, on the other hand, is truly a bold departure. He proposes abolishing existing Bush Administration restrictions on family visits and remittances to Cuba, which Richardson considers “cruel and counterproductive rules.” Most dramatically, Richardson says he is “ready to reassess the trade embargo … in exchange for Cuba releasing all political prisoners and making positive moves towards democratic freedoms.”

More typically, he touts the value of “fair trade” and agreements that include “strong and enforceable labor, environmental, and human rights standards.” This sounds very similar to what Senator Obama told La Opinion over the weekend.

Richardson also proposes giving a Latin American country a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

And, the last piece of the Latin American policy puzzle is:

comprehensive immigration reform that is realistic and humane. We need to aggressively police the border and punish employers who hire undocumented workers. But we must also recognize that we simply can’t deport the twelve million who are already here. We need a tough, fair path to legalization.

In comments that are sure to sit well with both the Mexican government and many Mexican Americans, Richardson added

But you know what won’t work? This wall. I think that Senators Clinton, Obama, and Biden were wrong to vote to build a wall between the United States and its neighbors.

They talk about change. But they voted for the most blatant example of old-style Washington solutions– expensive, dumb, and entirely the product of political calculation.

…Apparently the people in Washington who want to build a 12 foot wall have never heard of 13 foot ladders. We need new thinking in the White House, the kind that would never allow such a symbol along our border. If your Latin America policy starts with a wall between cultures … it will quickly collapse into rubble.

More in separate posts to come about his comments on immigration, Chávez and indigenous peoples.
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Latino Family Politics

The Richardson campaign has a Latino voter outreach program in Nevada and Georgia called “Mi Familia” (”My Family”).

The program is described in a Spanish-language press release as a “Latino community effort” (the translation is mine). Essentially, it is a way to aggregate Latino supporters. The first chapter was formed in Las Vegas in August “at the most grassroots level”, according to Martha Arevalo who is the Richardson campaign’s Latino communications specialist. A second chapter was formed in Atlanta earlier this month.

That Hispanics attach great importance to their families is a truism. That all members of a Latino family will want to vote for the same candidate is an untested proposition.

“A lot of the important decision that affect our country, our community - like who are you going to support for president often are family decision or at least family discussions” said Arevalo.

It is an interesting concept although very modest in scope at this point. I have no idea if it is likely to work on a large scale but the idea has been tested in plenty of other Hispanic marketing campaigns. For some time, the U.S. Army has targeted Hispanic “influencers” (gosh, I hate that word) in its Latino marketing efforts to attract recruits under the belief that madres, padres, tíos and primos are all likely to weigh in on a family member’s decision to join the Army.

In an interview with the Spectator (cited by National Review Online, which is how I learned of the British magazine article) Clinton strategist Mark Penn said

The radicalisation of illegal migrants to America, Penn thinks, could determine the next presidential election because their grievances will encourage their legally settled relatives to register and vote. ‘The most powerful political force in [America],’ he says, ‘and the most important voting bloc in the upcoming elections, may not even be able to vote — but their cousins can. And that may make all the difference.’

Maybe, maybe not. The point is Penn clearly believes Latinos, whether in the States legally or illegally, carry weight with their relatives who vote.

Mind you, in the world of Hispanic brand marketing the use of family and particularly abuelas is a cliché. However, there is still a relatively modest amount of Latino political marketing and there family imagery has not yet been too heavily overused. Although, I suspect it will be before the presidential election.

I believe the first Hispanic family ad in presidential politics dates to Bush 41’s campaign ad “Father-in-law“, which featured his Mexican-born daughter-in-law Columba Bush (Although, you could argue that description should go to the very first Spanish-language presidential campaign commercial).

In the ad, Columba (who later paid a $4,100 fine for failing to declare to Customs $19,000 worth of purchases made during a Paris shopping spree) says in Spanish “For the first time, we can elect a President who cares for us. Who understands our values, our traditions, our families. For the first time, this is possible. Believe me or ask my father-in-law.” (translation is mine) Bush 41 then responds, in English, “as President, i have a lot of reasons to help Hispanics everywhere because I’ll be answering to my grandkids not just to history.”

 

 

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Richardson’s Education Plan

Governor Bill Richardson held a conference call with reporters today to talk about his education plan.

I’ll provide more detail later but for now I’ll just share two quotes:

“I think I am the only [candidate] that says scrap “no child left behind.” Believe I am the only one that has a minimum wage for teachers (A starting salary of $40,000). I am the only one that is emphasizing the science and math academies. I am the only one with this college loan in exchange for national service plan. Yeah, i am trying to highlight my role as an education governor that I managed education programs in my states. All these other candidates they have their ten point plans, but I’ve actually done it.”

I asked the Governor if he was planning on airing Spanish-language ads in Nevada. He responded

“I’ll be doing that as we get closer. I’ll be doing that in nevada. You know, it is three months away. You guys are so anxious. This, this race is like barely starting. Voters started paying attention right after Labor Day.”

More later today on the governor’s education plan and some fact-checking of his statements.

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