The 2008 election not only marked the election of America's first African-American president, it also saw the strong and clear political emergence of a new, large and dynamic generation and the realignment of American politics for the next 40 years.
The first large wave of the Millennial Generation, young Americans born from 1982-2003, entered the electorate to decisively support President-elect Barack Obama. Young voters preferred Obama over U.S. Sen. John McCain by a greater than 2:1 margin (66% vs. 32%). And, dispelling the myth that young people never vote, Millennials cast ballots in larger numbers than young voters had in any recent presidential election. The overall contribution of young voters to the electorate ticked up slightly from 17% in 2004 to 18% this year, but in a larger electorate, that represents millions more voters. Proving that this generation of young voters is committed to participating in America’s civic life, it appears that a majority of eligible Millennials cast their ballot, continuing the rise in the percentage of young people who voted from its low of 37% among Generation Xers in 1996.
The increased size and overwhelming unity of young voters added significantly to Barack Obama's popular vote margin over John McCain of about six percentage points nationally. Without the contribution of young voters Obama's popular vote lead would have been a much narrower 1.5% points. Moreover, it appears that the youth vote was ultimately decisive in Obama's close wins in the formerly red states of Indiana and North Carolina.
As a result of this decisive support from the Millennial Generation, the Democratic Party is likely to be the dominant political force in the United States in the decades ahead. Millennials identify as Democrats by the same 2:1 margin that they voted for Barack Obama. Political science tells us that once individual and generations form their party identification they retain it for a lifetime. This will allow the Millennial Generation to take its place as America's next great Democratic civic generation just as their GI Generation great grandparents did nearly 80 years ago. Welcome to the Millennial era.
Senator Barack Obama’s success in the 2008 presidential campaign marks more than an historical turning point in American politics. It also signals the beginning of a new era for American society, one dominated by the attitudes and behaviors of the largest generation in American history.
Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003, now comprise almost one-third of the U.S. population and without their overwhelming support for his candidacy, Barack Obama would not have been able to win his party’s nomination, let alone been elected President of the United States. This new, “civic” generation is dramatically different than the boomers who have dominated our society since the 1960s and understanding this shift is critical to comprehending the changes that America will experience over the next forty years.
The arrival of social network technologies enabled Millennials to create the most intense, group-oriented decision-making process of any generation in American history. This generation’s preference for consensus for everything from minor decisions, like where to hang out, and major decisions, such as whether go to war, stems from a belief that every one impacted by a decision needs, at very least, to be consulted about it. This approach will dominate how leaders of America’s primary institutions – from corporations and churches to government at all levels – will be measured in the years ahead.
Contrast that approach to those of the candidates who struggled in 2008. In her losing run for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton presented case for a highly assertive, controversial – if sometimes a bit too strenuous – Boomer style of leadership. She emphasized the value of her years of experience and wisdom. Senator John McCain tried that approach as well during the summer lull, but found it didn’t have sufficient power to overtake Obama in the national polls. He then rolled the dice and asked a Generation-X Governor, Sarah Palin, to help him win voters by emphasizing their mutual belief in the superiority of traditional social values and small government. The Republican ticket has had about as much success with this strategy as Governors Huckabee and Romney did Millennial voters during the primaries.
To successfully manage the transition to a Millennial era, institutions will need to find leaders of any age far-sighted enough to fully embrace Millennial attitudes and behaviors. They have to give them full reign to makeover the outdated structures they will inherit.
Millennials, in particular, are ready to take on the challenge. Millennials were taught that if you follow the rules and work hard, you will succeed. As the first generation to experience “always on,” high-speed access to the Internet at a young age, Millennials have confounded the vision of many Gen X futurists who envisioned the Net as a tool to enhance individual freedom and liberty, not as a new resource for community building. Sharing their ideas and thoughts constantly from short Twitter texts, or “Tweets,” to extended, if often amateurish, videos on YouTube, Millennials generate and absorb an overwhelming amount of information. Individual Millennials use this ability to influence their own decisions, and then those of the wider group. If institutions and their leaders want their decisions to have any credibility with this new generation, every institution will need to open its own governance procedures to ensure a level of transparency and fairness that meets the test of Millennial values.
There have been other times in American history when a “civic” generation like the Millennials has emerged to transform the nation. In the eighteenth century a “civic” generation, called the “Republican Generation” by the seminal generational theorists William Strauss and Neil Howe, created the constitutional republic whose democratic values we celebrate to this day. About eighty years later, an equally “civic” impulse propelled to the war to abolish slavery and extend liberty and freedom to all citizens. And when the last “civic” generation was called upon by its elders to conquer fascism and remake America’s economy in the twentieth century, the GI Generation responded with such fervor and ability that they were labeled the “Greatest Generation” by a grateful nation.
Now, another eighty years later, it is the Millennial Generation’s turn. Its “civic” revolution draws its unique character from the particular way Millennials were brought up, and their use of interactive communication technologies. We believe the Millennial Generation's revolution will be just as profound as that of previous “civic” generations. Barack Obama’s victory does indeed mark the end of the late 20th century “idealist” era of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. But its significance is much deeper, and likely to shape the nature of the new era the country is about to enter.
Yesterday, we released a compendium of NDN’s best political analysis from the past several years. These memos and essays cover the main arguments coming from NDN: The end of the conservative ascendancy and the dawn of a "new politics," the emergence of new voting groups like the Millennials and Hispanics, the power that a whole array of new media and technology tools are unleashing into our democracy, and old-fashioned number crunching and analysis on everything from the role of independents, the economy and video in the elections. We've also included some of our analysis from the election of 2006, a day that saw the end of the conservative era, and set the stage for tomorrow's election, which will mark the beginning of a new one.
Millennial Makeover Authors Join NDN as Fellows - NDN is excited to announce that Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais, authors of the best-selling book Millennial Makeover, have joined NDN as Fellows. Morley and Mike are two of the most insightful and prescient interpreters of the profound demographic shifts taking place in our country today. NDN has a long history of working with Morley and Mike; they co-authored a seminal 2006 paper, "Politics of the Millennial Generation," for our affiliate, the New Politics Institute, and have spoken at several NDN events, including one in March about the Millennial transformation of American politics. They are an important and tremendously impressive addition to the NDN Team. To read bios of Morley and Mike, please click here.
NDN has long argued that Millennials, along with Hispanics, are becoming core elements of a new, sustainable 21st century progressive coalition. To learn more about how these demographics are changing the face of American politics, read our reports, "Hispanics Rising II" and "The Progressive Politics of the Millennial Generation."
NDN Breaking Through - NDN has been a major player in shaping the narrative surrounding the 2008 election. Here's a recap of our press from the last few weeks.
Simon's election analysis was recently featured in the Financial Times (11/4), the Arizona Republic (11/4), and The Hill (11/3), on NPR (11/4/08), and in DemFromCT's daily poll roundup on DailyKos (11/1), which linked to his front-page Huffington Post (10/31) article, as well as in Newsday (10/27), the Arizona Republic (10/26), and the Huffington Post (10/28, again). He was quoted in the VIBE cover story, "The Tipping Point" (10/14) about the historic implications of the rise of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama. Dan Balz quoted Simon in the Washington Post after the third and final presidential debate (10/16). Simon also provided analysis of the election in the Independent (10/22), Reuters (10/22, as well as here on 10/17), and in several more featured posts on the Huffington Post (here, 10/21, here, 10/22, and here, 10/17). His election commentary also aired on radio stations across the country (10/22), and he was featured on WAMU's "Power Breakfast." Finally, Andres was featured in the Wall Street Journal (10/31) speaking about the increasing importance of early voting.
Our work on Hispanic issues has garnered widespread attention in the last few weeks. Our recent polling on immigration reform was featured in a front page article in the Wall Street Journal (11/1). Ron Brownstein quoted Simon about demographic shifts on MSNBC's "Road to the White House." Simon hit on similar themes involving the Hispanic electorate and the country's changing electoral map in the San Francisco Chronicle (10/26), Bloomberg (10/26), the San Francisco Chronicle (10/13), Bloomberg (10/17), and Hispanic Trending (10/9). Andres also talked about the importance of the Hispanic electorate in the Latino Journal (10/12), and our recent immigration poll of battleground states was featured in a diary on DailyKos (10/16).
On the green front, Michael was featured in the Council on Foreign Relations (10/30) discussing energy prices and cutting carbon emissions, and had a featured post about dealing with climate change in a troubled economy in the Huffington Post's Green section (10/22). Rob was featured in Grist (10/28) speaking about clean infrastructure and a second economic stimulus.
NDN also remained a strong voice on the economy: Rob was quoted recently in a big story in the New York Times (10/22) and the International Herald-Tribune (10/21) about the Treasury backing the consolidation of banks, was featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer (10/14), and had this excellent quote in the Washington Times (10/17).
Finally, NDN also made several TV appearances recently. Our event with Simon and Joe Trippi was broadcast on C-SPAN, Simon went on BBC World News to discuss the election (relevant section begins at 1:40), and Andres appeared on several Nevada TV channels, including Fox and ABC, condemning illegal voter suppression tactics targeting Hispanic voters.
NDN's newest fellows, Morley Winograd and Mike Hais, offer some excellent analysis today of the important role Millennials will play in tomorrow's election. They posit that "this year, the sheer size and overwhelming unity of Millennials is likely to provide Barack Obama with a much larger advantage" than John Kerry enjoyed among this group in 2004.
I'd just like to offer a quick piece of anecdotal evidence to back this up. I was on Facebook just now (for work purposes of course), and noticed that more than half a million people have now signed up to have their status automatically updated to display a GOTV message. Users can choose whether the message says to get out and vote for Obama, McCain, or just to get out and vote, and then pass the word on to up to 40 friends at a time. Here are what people have chosen so far:
So far, Facebook users are breaking more than four to one for Obama. That's what we Millennials might call "PWNAGE."
10:45 PM UPDATE: More than 840,000 people have now signed up (!)
The Millennial Generation is poised to play a decisive role in the election of Barack Obama on November 4. An October 30 ABC News/Washington Post national poll gave Barack Obama an eight-point advantage over John McCain (52% vs. 44%). Among young voters in the ABC sample Obama continued to enjoy the nearly 2:1 advantage he has held throughout the campaign (64% vs. 33%). Among all older voters, the race is far closer (50% vs. 46% in favor of Obama).
Just how big an advantage this proves to be for the Obama campaign depends on how many Millennials actually cast their ballots in the election. In 2004, about half of eligible young people turned out to vote; they favored John Kerry by a relatively narrow 55% vs. 45% margin. This gave Kerry about a 1.7 million vote plurality among young voters, a lead that was more than wiped out by George W. Bush's lead among older generations -- Silents like John McCain and Joe Biden, Baby Boomers like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and Gen Xers like Sarah Palin. This year, the sheer size and overwhelming unity of Millennials is likely to provide Barack Obama with a much larger advantage.
Even if Millennials vote at only the same rate that young people did in 2004, Obama will receive about a six million vote plurality from them. Given the political interest and high voter turnout that Millennials showed in the presidential primaries earlier this year, it seems likely that their turnout on Tuesday will be higher than that of young voters four years ago. If 55 percent of Millennials go to the polls, Obama's plurality among them will grow to about seven million. And, if Millennials vote at the same 60 percent rate that older generations do, Obama's national plurality from young voters will be almost eight million. Given that George W. Bush beat John Kerry by only a little more than three million votes, the Millennial margins Obama is likely to enjoy should prove to be the decisive factor in this year’s election.
While it was painful for Democrats to experience at the time, the inter-generational contest between Barack Obama, with his solid support among Millennials, and Hillary Clinton, with her dedicated cadre of Boomer women, proved to be a great advantage to the Democratic ticket in the general election. Once Senator Clinton graciously and enthusiastically endorsed Obama at the convention, the stage was set for a campaign that could unite the generations in November. By contrast, John McCain’s nomination of Sarah Palin, a classic Gen X candidate for Vice President, did irreparable damage to his candidacy among Millennials. Like her generation, Palin’s risk-taking style is confrontational and entrepreneurial with little tolerance for government activism. By contrast, Millennials are focused on solutions that involve the whole group and use government as an instrument to bring people together on behalf of the greater good. Millennials were the first generation to register their disapproval of Palin, and her negatives among this key constituency have continued to climb throughout the campaign. Millennials are a generation of "liberal interventionists" in the economy, "activist multilateralists" in foreign affairs, and "tolerant non-meddlers" on social issues -- all things the McCain/Palin ticket is not.
But, as we forecast in our book, Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics, what the Millennials do on November 4, 2008 is going to be only one important step in what this generation will accomplish over the next four decades. The Millennial Generation is a civic generation and, like their GI Generation great grandparents, America's last civic generation, Millennials will lead a makeover of American politics. This realignment will make the Democratic Party the dominant force in U.S. politics and will turn the country away from the divisive social issues and gridlock of the past forty years to a win-win approach that confronts and actually resolves fundamental economic and foreign policy matters. Welcome to the Millennial Era.
*** Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais, Fellows at NDN, are co-authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics (Rutgers University Press: 2008).
At the Washington Post's "The Trail" blog, they look back on the Obama campaign's use of mobile media, and asked me my thoughts. As I've said before on the NDN blog, I'm impressed. Here is what I told them:
"In terms of both marketing and execution, the Obama campaign has been
pretty brilliant in their use of text messaging, and I was quite
impressed that they also evolved over the campaign," Tim Chambers,
co-founder of Media 50 Group, a start-up that focuses on the mobile
political space, and co-author of a study called "Mobile Media in 21st
Century Politics," told The Trail. "But I was equally if not more
impressed by their moving beyond text messaging with their mobile Web
site, and into their native iPhone application. In each case, they were
breaking new ground for political mobile action, writing some of the
rules as they went, and foreshadowing what I think will be to come."
In the past weeks, I’ve been discussing the use of new tools in this election cycle. There can no longer be any doubt that these new tools are playing an increasingly important role in elections; for example, a fascinating new article by Sarah Lai Stirland in Wired magazine explores the definitive success of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s organizing operation (the model for which was engineered by two Harvard professors), and its integration with Obama’s social networking site, my.BarackObama.com. From the article:
…Obama is the first to successfully integrate technology with a revamped model of political organization that stresses volunteer participation and feedback on a massive scale, erecting a vast, intricate machine set to fuel an unprecedented get-out-the-vote drive in the final days before Tuesday's election.
"I think what was recovered in this campaign is the sense of what leadership is, and what the role of the technology is, so that you get the best out of both," says Marshall Ganz, a public policy lecturer at Harvard who designed the field-organizer and volunteer training system used by the Obama campaign. "The Dean campaign understood how to use the internet for the fund-raising, but not for the organizing."
"We've really poured a lot of energy and thought into making this focused on real-world organizing activity," says Chris Hughes, the 24-year-old co-founder of Facebook, who left that company last year to help Obama with his online organizational efforts.
Obama’s advanced, tech-savvy new organizing system has undoubtedly helped him in this election cycle (as Simon explained in another great Wired article a few months back); he used this new model in the primaries in Iowa and South Carolina, which he won, while sticking with a more traditional strategy in New Hampshire, which he lost. Obama's model works because it brings people together, makes them a part of a team, and gives them easy ways that they can translate their inspiration and enthusiasm into concrete action.
But with the election coming to a close in just a few short days, it is worth it for us to take a step back and recall just why all of this matters in the first place. These developments aren’t exciting because of their novelty, or because of our innate love of all things shiny and new. They aren't exciting solely in the context of electing a particular candidate. They are exciting, or they should be exciting, because technology is making citizens not just better informed but also more involved, allowing them to participate more directly and more effectively in government, which makes our nation itself more authentically democratic.
As Simon and Joe Trippi argued at our excellent event here earlier this week (watch the C-SPAN footage here), this trend cannot and must not end with the election. To be successful, the next president must be someone who embraces the new era of politics. Senator Obama in particular stresses ownership and involvement, and often reminds us that change comes from the bottom up. We will be watching to see if, should he win the presidency, his actions match his rhetoric.
With the launch of new sites like BigDialogue and WhiteHouse2.org, the tools are there waiting to be picked up. These sites aim to give people a more direct voice in governance. In the words of BigDialogue’s founder David Colarusso, “the way we interact with Government is about to change, and the shape of that change is up to us. The Internet is not just a way to raise money or mobilize supporters. It's a way to shrink the distance between people and politicians. For the first time in history, it's possible for hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people to have a single conversation.”
I highly encourage everyone to visit both of these sites and try them out. These are some of the most exciting new tools that I’ve seen in a long time; the question is, will our next president embrace them, or ignore them?
<shameless plug> NDN has been at the forefront of advocating for an increased use of social networking sites in politics; to learn more about the myriad possibilities of social networks, read our New Politics Institute's New Tools paper, "Leverage Social Networks." </shameless plug>
NDN's long-held analysis on the significance of the Hispanic vote is now common knowledge, as further evidenced by Chuck Todd's report, but an important challenge remains in the less than 150 hours until Election Day - the only way the potential of the Hispanic vote, and all registered voters, will translate to an electoral reality is by ensuring that all precincts have the capacity to handle a 90-98% turnout based on 2008 registration numbers. Actual turnout will depend on: 1) making sure people understand how to vote, and 2) access to the polls.
During early voting, some states have already far exceeded turnout from 2004: in Georgia, early voting is already at 180 percent of its 2004 total, Louisiana (169 percent), and North Carolina (129 percent) - all states with large minority populations. Precincts should be prepared to handle twice the number of voters from 2004. We shoud be wary when precincts report that they are prepared for 90% turnout, as opposed to 80% from 2004 - they should have enough machines and/or paper ballots to accomodate the number of all registered voters in 2008, not just enough for a fraction of registered voters based on 2004 numbers.
Florida, with an estimated 12% of Hispanic voters, has already declared an emergency and extended voting hours to 12 hours a day as a result of voter turnout - this with only about 10%, or 1.2 million of registered voters statewide having voted as of Monday. In Georgia,some people waited for eight hours at the polls. By Tuesday the lines were down to "just" four hours, so the GA Democratic Party Chair, Jane Kidd, urged the Secretary of State to keep the polls open: "today, it is clear that we are in a crisis, and it is unclear even if there is enough time for the remaining four million-plus Georgia voters to cast their votes in an efficient and timely manner." By the way, GA state law doesn't provide for weekend voting and prohibits voting on the Monday before Election Day.
In Virginia, a state that's now a "tossup," we're already seeing voting problems thanks to everything from phony fliers stating the wrong date for Election Day, to alleged "gerrymandering" of voting equipment. A lawsuithas been filed against the state of VA charging that some primarily minority neighborhoods are allotted a lesser number of voting machines per person as compared to other areas, leading to longer lines and arguing that this constitutes a "time tax" on the right to vote, as some voters might give up and go home. Voting problems would disproportionately hurt the Democratic Party and Sen. Barack Obama. According to the new ABC/Washington Post poll, during early voting Sen. Obama picked up 60 percent of the vote, to John McCain's 39 percent. According to Gallup, between Oct. 17 and Oct. 27, early voters turned out 53% for Obama over 43% for McCain.
In the meantime, candidates continue to push early voting, as seen in the Obama ad below. Luckily there is also a push for instructional videos on how to vote, in Englishand in Spanish:
There's always a lot happening here at NDN, so in case you missed anything, here's what we've been up to in the last week:
A Stimulus for the Long Run - Post-election, Congress will head back to Washington to consider another stimulus package. NDN Globalization Initiative Chair Dr. Robert Shapiro and Green Project Director Michael Moynihan have been weighing in on the need to create a package that jumpstarts the economy now and helps ensure future prosperity by working to create a low-carbon economy. In a recent essay, Shapiro argued for a “Stimulus for the Long Run” that invests in clean infrastructure, worker training, and technology. In a separate memo, Moynihan also made the case for Accelerating the Development of a 21st Century Economy: Investing in Clean Infrastructure. The bottom line: Congress has a limited amount of money to spend on a stimulus.
Election Forum with Joe Trippi and Simon Rosenberg - Yesterday, NDN hosted a special lunchtime Election Forum with NDN President Simon Rosenberg and Internet pioneer, top political strategist and New Politics Institute fellow Joe Trippi. Joe and Simon looked at this remarkable election cycle and also beyond November 4 to the next Administration. For more information and photos from the event, please click here.
NDN Countdown to Election 2008 - With less than a week to go before Election Day, the NDN team continued to weigh in on issues ranging from swinging poll numbers to donation-fueled shopping sprees to early voting. With the media reporting U.S. Sen. Barack Obama with anywhere from a double-digit to a single-digit lead over U.S. Sen. John McCain, Simon asked, "Is McCain Playing to Win?"
Simon's essay echoes what he and the NDN team have been saying for several weeks: we may see an uptick in McCain's numbers as the race enters the final days, but that's because the Arizona senator is gaining ground he already should have held. It's not a sign of McCain's strength; rather, it's a sign of his weakness and disappointing campaign that many in the GOP base are only now coming home. For more on the final days of the campaign, check out this report from yesterday's Newsday, which quotes Simon.
Simon also predicted that increasingly, we will start to hear quiet talk of realignment, blowout, rout, coattails and a new political era. If the trends continue, we are headed toward a true blowout with the top of the Democratic ticket getting its highest vote share since 1964, Democrats having more ideological control of Washington since the mid 1960s and Democrats having the makings of a new very 21st century majority coalition they could ride for the next 30-40 years of politics.
And the other big news last week? What about Gov. Sarah Palin slapping her hockey Mom image right out of the rink by spending $150,000 on designer clothes and make up? Chalk it up the Republicans’ being completely out of touch with the economic struggles of everyday people. Melissa also took a look at an interview Palin did with James Dobson, the immensley popular leader of “Focus on the Family.” While Palin has apologized for some of her more divisive rhetoric as of late, she played to Dobson’s audience in this interview, even seeming to contradict McCain's more moderate stances on several issues, including stem cell research, choice and gay marriage. Is Palin thinking conservative base in 2012?
Back to the here-and-now, Andres Ramirez, Vice President of Hispanic Programs, spent the week focusing on the subject of early voting. With one in three registered voters expected to cast their ballots before November 4, Andres wrote about the record-breaking numbers of early voters, how many of those voters are experiencing very long waits to vote and efforts to prevent people from voting or purge newly registered voters from the rolls.
Keep People in Their Homes - For more than a month, NDN has been arguing that any government response to the financial crisis must include a central provision to keep people in their homes. Momentum to do just that grew last week, as FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair testified before Congress and presented a proposal to keep people in their homes, and the New York Times editorialized on the issue. The Washington Post reported that Bair’s proposal received a warm reception from lawmakers, a welcome sign that the federal government will soon provide necessary leadership in this effort. For more on NDN’s Keep People in Their Homes effort, click here.
Other NDN Thinking - There are no lack of victims from the meltdown of the financial markets and the oncoming economic recession. Will moving toward a low-carbon future, a top priority for NDN, be one of them? Our answer is “no.” Jake Berliner argued that Energy Reform Can Be an Economic Boon. Green Project Director Moynihan further buttressed Jake’s arguments in his essay, Climate Change: Next Steps in a Troubled Economy. Zuraya Tapia-Alfaro looked at Barack Obama’s latest Spanish-language ad about restoring the “American Dream,” following other Spanish-language TV and radio ads on education, health care, taxes, and more. She also wrote about immigration in the presidential race and how the next president can discuss immigration reform using an economic narrative during this time of economic crisis.
New Tools Feature: Go Mobile - In last week's New Tools Feature, TXT 2 GOTV, I highlighted a new study that shows the great bang-for-the-buck efficacy of text-based get-out-the-vote campaigns, which, on average, cost only $1.56 per vote. To learn more about using SMS messaging effectively, be sure to read our New Politics Institute's New Tools paper, Go Mobile Now. While texting has already had a real, measurable effect in this election cycle, and will be critical to getting out key voting blocs next Tuesday, the true potential of mobile-powered politics has yet to be tapped.
NDN Breaking Through - The new VIBEMagazine hit shelves last week. For the first time in its 15-year history, VIBE endorsed a candidate this month. Simon is quoted in the cover story, "The Tipping Point," about race in American politics and the historic implications of the rise of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.
Simon also provided analysis of the election in the Independent, Reuters (and subsequently on Michael Moore's blog), and in two featured posts on the Huffington Post (here and here). His election commentary also aired on radio stations across the country, and he was featured on WAMU's "Power Breakfast": you can listen to the segment here:
Barack Obama's latest ad is not only in Spanish, but it has Barack Obama speaking in Spanish through the entire ad - not an easy feat. He has a good accent, better than George W. Bush's. And as we saw in the case of then Gov. Bush, the Hispanic community doesn't care so much about a candidate being able to speak perfect Spanish, they care that they try - and I must say, Sen. Obama pulls it off seamlessly here. By contrast, Sen. McCain hasn't so much as tried to learn the "I'm John McCain and I approve this message" tagline in Spanish. This ad is part of something historic. Barack Obama has now spent more than any other presidential candidate in history on Spanish language media. And he is only the third or fourth candidate that I can count that has cared to speak to this demographic in their language of origin. As reported in the documentary, "Latinos 08", Jackie Kennedy filmed a message in Spanish on behalf of her husband when he ran for office, George W. Bush spoke some Spanish here and there, and Howard Dean tried his hand at it as well, but the Obama campaign has spent a record amount of resources on a record amount of Spanish language ads. And it seems to be paying off. According to the latest polls, Barack Obama now holds a 40-50 point lead among Hispanics. This is his second Spanish-language address, the first having been an ad in Puerto Rico during the primaries. Here, he is trying to bond with the Hispanic community by speaking of the "American Dream" that motivated so many of them to come to this country, thus trying to add an emotional connection to the support among Hispanics that seems largely driven by issues and party identification.
And a translation of the ad:
BO: We share a dream, That through hard work your family can succeed.
That if you're sick, you can have access to medical insurance.
That our children can have a quality education, regardless of whether you are rich or poor.
That is the American Dream.
I ask you for your vote, not just for me and the Democrats, but so that you can keep that dream alive for yourself and for your children.
I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message.
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