{"id":1819,"date":"2007-06-06T14:36:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-06T20:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/06\/univision-to-hold-presidential-debates-in-spanish-richardson-will-participate-urges-others-to-attend\/"},"modified":"2007-06-06T14:36:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-06T20:36:00","slug":"univision-to-hold-presidential-debates-in-spanish-richardson-will-participate-urges-others-to-attend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/06\/univision-to-hold-presidential-debates-in-spanish-richardson-will-participate-urges-others-to-attend\/","title":{"rendered":"Univision to hold presidential debates in Spanish; Richardson will participate, urges others to attend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The nation\u2019s largest Spanish-language network has invited presidential candidates from both parties to attend debates conducted in Spanish, and Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> is the first to accept. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Univision<\/a> plans to hold the Democratic and Republican candidate debates on two Sundays in September. They would be held in Miami<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> and would likely focus on immigration, the Los Angeles Times<\/a> is reporting.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The Democratic debate is scheduled for Sept. 9 at the University<\/st1:placetype> of Miami<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Deciding whether to attend will be especially tricky for GOP candidates. All but John McCain<\/a> support making English the nation\u2019s official language. On the Democratic side, only Mike Gravel<\/a> favors such a policy, but there\u2019s another awkward factor to these debates: Among candidates from both parties, only Democrats Richardson and Chris Dodd<\/a> are known to be fluent in Spanish.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> challenged the other Democrats to take part in the debate.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an extraordinary opportunity to reach the Latino community, which will play a pivotal role in choosing the next president,\u201d he said in a news release. \u201c\u2026 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Univision is the fifth most viewed network in the United States<\/st1:country-region><\/st1:place>, which will make it difficult for candidates to decline the invitation.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton<\/a> recently angered many in the American Indian community by declining an invitation to attend the Aug. 23 Prez on the Rez<\/a> debate in California<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>. All other Democratic candidates have agreed to attend the first-ever forum in Indian country.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Richardson<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> shows popularity after CNN debate<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Richardson<\/st1:city> appears to be holding his own in New Hampshire<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> after Sunday\u2019s CNN<\/a> debate. A new poll there, conducted by WBZ\/Franklin Pierce College<\/a>, has Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> 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.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The last poll by the group, conducted in March, had Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> at 3 percent.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But Clinton<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> had the biggest gain. She\u2019s now at 38 percent in the poll and a full 22 percentage points ahead of second-place Barack Obama<\/a>, who had 16 percent. John Edwards<\/a> had 13 percent.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Al Gore, who isn\u2019t running, was also included in the poll, and tied Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> for 8 percent.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Several polls of likely Democratic voters in Iowa<\/st1:state> and New Hampshire<\/st1:state> taken in the weeks before the debate had Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> at between 8 and 10 percent, so the new poll doesn\u2019t reflect a jump, but does indicate that he\u2019s holding steady even after the debate.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Another, non-scientific poll may be more interesting.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

WMUR 9<\/a> in New Hampshire<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>, which co-sponsored the CNN debate, ran a non-scientific poll on its site asking who won. Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> 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.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Since a similar surge isn\u2019t reflected in the newest scientific poll, this doesn\u2019t mean much other than proving that Richardson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> has a strong online presence and following. His campaign, in many ways, is an experiment in the power of the Internet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The nation\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}