Univision to hold presidential debates in Spanish; Richardson will participate, urges others to attend

The nation’s largest Spanish-language network has invited presidential candidates from both parties to attend debates conducted in Spanish, and Gov. Bill Richardson is the first to accept.

Univision plans to hold the Democratic and Republican candidate debates on two Sundays in September. They would be held in Miami and would likely focus on immigration, the Los Angeles Times is reporting.

The Democratic debate is scheduled for Sept. 9 at the University of Miami.

Deciding whether to attend will be especially tricky for GOP candidates. All but John McCain support making English the nation’s official language. On the Democratic side, only Mike Gravel favors such a policy, but there’s another awkward factor to these debates: Among candidates from both parties, only Democrats Richardson and Chris Dodd are known to be fluent in Spanish.

Particularly in the Democratic Party, do the others participate through the use of translators and highlight their Spanish handicap in front of an audience that will place importance on fluency, or do they skip the debate altogether?

Richardson challenged the other Democrats to take part in the debate.

“This is an extraordinary opportunity to reach the Latino community, which will play a pivotal role in choosing the next president,” he said in a news release. “… I challenge my fellow Democratic candidates to participate in this debate and not to find reasons to avoid it. Diversity is a fundamental Democratic issue. We should be committed to reaching the broadest range of Americans possible, and the Latino community is critical to winning the nomination and the presidency in 2008.”

Univision is the fifth most viewed network in the United States, which will make it difficult for candidates to decline the invitation.

Hillary Clinton recently angered many in the American Indian community by declining an invitation to attend the Aug. 23 Prez on the Rez debate in California. All other Democratic candidates have agreed to attend the first-ever forum in Indian country.

Richardson shows popularity after CNN debate

Meanwhile, Richardson appears to be holding his own in New Hampshire after Sunday’s CNN debate. A new poll there, conducted by WBZ/Franklin Pierce College, has Richardson at eight percent. The poll, conducted Monday, surveyed 424 likely Democratic primary voters and has a margin of error of 4.8 percent. It is the first poll conducted since the debate.

The last poll by the group, conducted in March, had Richardson at 3 percent.

But Clinton had the biggest gain. She’s now at 38 percent in the poll and a full 22 percentage points ahead of second-place Barack Obama, who had 16 percent. John Edwards had 13 percent.

Al Gore, who isn’t running, was also included in the poll, and tied Richardson for 8 percent.

Several polls of likely Democratic voters in Iowa and New Hampshire taken in the weeks before the debate had Richardson at between 8 and 10 percent, so the new poll doesn’t reflect a jump, but does indicate that he’s holding steady even after the debate.

Another, non-scientific poll may be more interesting.

WMUR 9 in New Hampshire, which co-sponsored the CNN debate, ran a non-scientific poll on its site asking who won. Richardson led all candidates with 473 votes, or 32 percent. He was followed closely by Clinton, who had 442 votes, or 30 percent. Obama and Edwards each had 10 percent.

Since a similar surge isn’t reflected in the newest scientific poll, this doesn’t mean much other than proving that Richardson has a strong online presence and following. His campaign, in many ways, is an experiment in the power of the Internet.