As a follow-up to some recent posts on California gubernatorial candidates’ courting of the Latino vote via Spanish-language ad campaigns and town hall meetings, I offer you some excerpts from a piece from today’s edition of the LA Daily News:

The governor taped a town-hall forum on Spanish-language Univision that aired statewide over the weekend, even as opponents launched their first Spanish-language TV ads featuring Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa attacking the governor’s proposals.

The high-profile events are just the latest campaign efforts aimed at courting the 2 million Latinos registered to vote in California, accounting for 14 percent of the statewide electorate.

“We’ve been on the air with a seven-figure Spanish TV buy for the last three weeks,” said Todd Harris, the governor’s campaign spokesman.

“In the past week, the governor has been endorsed by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Latino Coalition, the Hispanic 100, the Hispanic Business Roundtable. Very influential statewide Latino groups have been joining the governor’s reform campaign in droves.”

Harris, who was involved in Schwarzenegger’s recall campaign, said this year’s effort has more staff and resources dedicated toward courting the Latino vote than did the 2003 campaign.

I find it curious and disturbing that Latino issues only get addressed when it’s time to “court” the Latino vote (this has been evidenced repeatedly in the NYC mayoral campaigns), but even more disturbing is that the Governor of California believes that he can woo Latino voters without even talking about Latino issues. You address the community as a group but ignore the challenges faced by the community? Apparently this isn’t doing much for his approval rating:

And a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California last week showed that 76 percent of Latinos disapprove of the governor’s job performance.

I don’t know what the Latino political pulse is in general, but the people I know all say the same thing: “November 8th voting will be simple. I’ll just vote against whatever the Governor is pushing.”

Via / The LA Daily News