Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is out today with his first Spanish-language radio ad, a personal look at his life in which he aims to relate to Hispanic voters.
“Some people have power and connections. But most of us have to make our own way through life. This is true even for the man who could become the next president, Barack Obama,” the ad’s narrator says in Spanish. “He grew up without a father — raised by his mother with the support of his grandparents. Through student loans and hard work, he graduated from college.”
“Obama never forgot his roots. He worked with churches to help families get job training and after-school care for their children. In the state Senate, he passed a law that helped reduce the welfare roles by over 80 percent by helping families to secure jobs,” the narrator states. “And despite the political pressure, Obama has stood with us for immigration reform and spoke out for our veterans.”
“It’s time we had a president who understands we all deserve a chance to make our own way,” the narrator says.
You can listen to the ad, which is airing in
Obama’s first ad aimed at Hispanics follows a volley of ads from Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Earlier this month, McCain unveiled an English-language television ad targeting Hispanics. McCain began airing his first Spanish-language radio ad in
Obama deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand said on a conference call with reporters today that the campaign “will have a very strong presence on both Spanish-speaking and English-speaking airwaves (targeting the Hispanic community) between now and the end, a constant presence.”
And U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., said on the call that there’s a big difference between McCain’s TV ad and Obama’s new radio ad.
“Sen. McCain’s ad speaks to Latinos. I think Sen. Obama’s ad is part of us and speaks with us because he talks about how, from birth to the present, Barack’s experiences have been our experiences,” Becerra said.
Still, Becerra conceded that McCain’s TV ad, in which he talks about Hispanics as “God’s children,” is probably effective in getting Hispanics to consider the GOP candidate. However, he said, when they take a close look at the records of Obama and McCain, they’ll find a big difference and support Obama — a claim that is backed up by independent polls that show Obama with a wide lead over McCain among Hispanics.
Hildebrand said Obama “has fought for comprehensive immigration reform and never walked away from it.” That’s been a sticking point in the election: McCain was one of the leaders of last year’s failed attempt at comprehensive reform. McCain now says that, because he doesn’t believe Congress will approve comprehensive reform, he supports securing the border first and then tackling other reforms.
Obama has accused McCain of turning his back on comprehensive reform. McCain, meanwhile, says Obama supported extremist amendments that helped kill the comprehensive-reform bill.