Richardson Says He Has Plan to Mobilize Iowa Hispanic Voters

by: Douglas Burns

Sunday (07/29) at 15:43 PM

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the first serious Latino candidate for president, is surging in Iowa polls and drawing larger and larger crowds to his campaign appearances in the Hawkeye States.

And he's doing it before audiences of primarily white rural voters, at least in western Iowa, a part of the state with a burgeoning Latino population.

This raises several questions: Could a behind-the- scenes, or at least less visible, Richardson campaign in the Latin community be in the works?. Or is Richardson intentionally reaching out to white voters first to avoid the ethnic tag? Or, as the candidate himself suggests to Iowa Independent, is it just too early to judge?

In western Iowa in recent weeks, Iowa Independent has attended three Richardson events. Few if any Hispanics have been spotted in Richardson audiences in Red Oak, Denison (which is heavily Hispanic) and Fort Dodge, one of the larger cities in north-central Iowa.

Richardson tells Iowa Independent that he has a number of Hispanic staff members, and plans to reach out into the Latin community.

His senior advisor, Michael J. Stratton, one of the more powerful Hispanic insiders in American politics, was a key figure in U.S, Sen. Ken Salazar's election in 2004 in Colorado, a rare bright spot for the Democrats in that Bush re-election year.

With six months to go until the Iowa caucuses, Richardson says poliitcal observers should give him time to roll out his complete campaign strategy.

"We do a have a plan to organize the Hispanic community," Richarson told Iowa Independent in Fort Dodge a few days ago.

Hispanics, like the African-American community, cannot be sequestered into a monolith. That said, there are concentrated pockets of Latino voters in western Iowa who would seem to have common interests and frustations, not to mention some outright anger about recent political rhetoric.

As an earlier Iowa Independent piece - The Iowa Hispanic Kingmaker Theory - suggested, a wise candidate, and not necessarily just Richardson, would take note of this and campaign aggressively in Iowa's Hispanic enclaves.

It could be a winning strategy, a way for a candidate to separate from the field of nine. And it could be a determing factor in the 2008 Democratic caucuses.

According to the most recent KCCI-TV poll Richardson has picked up the most ground of any Democratic candidate in Iowa since May, climbing 4 points to 11 percent. That places him fourth and on the heels of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. (16 percent). Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., leads Iowa with 27 percent followed by U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., at 22 percent.

Richardson's jump should draw much more attention to the prospect of courting an as of yet largely unseen political force, Iowa's Latin community.

Only about 61,000 Iowans participated in Iowa's Democratic caucuses in the year 2000, and that number doubled in 2004. With a similar turnout in 2008, it's conceivable that a candidate who successfully courts, say, 1,500 Hispanic caucus-goers in Sioux City, could find the margin to pull of a win.

A couple of caucuses in Denison and a few in Storm Lake, and presto, you've just won the night and vaulted into front-runner status for the Democratic Party's nomination.

Let's take a closer look at some of the numbers.

Using 2005 and 2006 estimates, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that 16.7 percent (2,830) of Crawford County's population of 16,948 is Hispanic. In the county seat of Denison, using the latest Census numbers from 2000, 17 percent (1,274) of the city is Latin.

In Woodbury County, using 2005 and 2006 Census figures the total Latin population is estimated at 11 percent, or 11,533 of the 102,972 people living in that northwest Iowa county. 2000 Census figures show that 11 percent (9.350) of Sioux City's population (85,013) is Hispanic, and 21 percent (2,121) of Storm Lake's population (10,076) is of Hispanic origin.

There are pockets of Latin voters in central and eastern Iowa as well.

As Richardson makes inroads with white, elderly voters in rural Iowa, is this Hispanic population a possible trump card for the New Mexican? Although many Hispanics may not be regular caucus-goers or even involved in the political process, the race-baiting anti-Hispanic language of some conservative Republicans, notably fire-breathing cultural warrior U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, could mobilize formerly absent Latinos in the caucuses.

"I'm going to start organizing the Hispanic community," Richardson said. "We have six months to go. I first have to visit every county, get my staff together, get my ads. But it is a strategy."