Univision says guv must speak English at forum

Gov. Bill Richardson won’t get a chance to show off his Spanish-language skills to a Spanish-speaking audience at Univision’s Democratic presidential candidate forum on Sept. 9.

The forum is a first for the Spanish-language network, and Richardson and Chris Dodd, the only presidential candidates who are fluent in Spanish, jumped on the opportunity when it was first announced. It had huge potential for them – either they’d be the only two attending and asking for Hispanic votes, or the others would be clumsily speaking through a translator while they directly engaged viewers in their language.

Not so fast. Univision has implemented a rule for the forum that all candidates must speak English and use a translator. Though I haven’t seen it reported anywhere, it’s easy to guess what happened. The Big Three said they’d only attend if all candidates – even those fluent in Spanish – spoke English.

Do you want to appease Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, or Richardson and Dodd? Guess who won that battle?

Richardson threatened to not attend after being told he would have to speak in English, according to the New York Times, but later backed down.

“While we’re not happy about that, we believe this is too important an opportunity to miss,” Richardson campaign spokesman Pahl Shipley told the newspaper.

This is a bad situation for Richardson. Speaking in Spanish to a group that largely doesn’t realize he is three-fourths Hispanic would have been a great opportunity. He often wears his emotion on his face, and there’s potential for his frustration to be apparent. In addition, he’ll need to guard against clumsiness in his answers, since he can move seamlessly from English to Spanish in his head but will have to wait for the slower process of translation.

Look for Richardson to cheat a little. He’ll stick some Spanish into his answers. I’d bet on it.

It could be worse. Univision cancelled, at least for now, its GOP debate because most candidates wouldn’t commit. That left John McCain, who as an Arizona senator also stood to gain among Hispanics by participating in the forum, without such an opportunity.