Chávez: Obama needs to do more to reach Hispanics

I wrote in May, following Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s Las Cruces visit, that he was going to have to do more to reach out to conservative, rural and Hispanic voters – including returning to Las Cruces – in order to win New Mexico.

Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chávez agrees that Obama has to do more to reach Hispanics. The mayor, who supported Bill Richardson and later Hillary Clinton before eventually backing Obama for president, made some telling comments in an article published this week in the National Journal.

“The real question in my mind is whether Senator Obama is going to be able to capture Hispanics by a significant margin,” Chávez was quoted in the article as saying. “That’s a big ‘if,’ because he’s clearly an urbanite.”

The state Republican Party seized on the opportunity to attack Obama with a news release.

“Republicans, Democrats and independents alike understand just how out of touch Barack Obama is from New Mexicans and their values. This is especially true when talking about New Mexico Hispanics, who do not traditionally favor Obama’s commitment to higher taxes, his lack of real solutions to the high gas prices we face and his far-left social values,” Ivette Barajas, Spanish communications director for the GOP, said in the release. “We’ve heard Obama demean people living in small-town America before, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that his urban agenda would leave smaller communities and New Mexico Hispanics behind.”

The Obama campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The National Journal article analyzed New Mexico’s role as a swing state in the presidential race and highlighted the 2nd Congressional District — and Las Cruces — as important to the race. In the article, Chávez talked about the influx of Californians and others who tend to vote Democratic into New Mexico, but said Obama needs to broaden his appeal beyond them to win the state.

He pointed out to the news magazine that, when Obama recently visited Albuquerque, he met at a coffeehouse with working women but didn’t reach out to Hispanics. Chávez said Obama probably has the edge in New Mexico but has yet to make his case with Hispanics.

“(Obama) walked into the Flying Star and did an event with the latte crowd,” the magazine quoted the mayor as saying. He added that Obama needs to “get outside Albuquerque.”

Update, 6 p.m.

It’s worth pointing out that the National Journal article came out before the Obama campaign announced its $20 million effort to reach Hispanics across the nation.