ORLANDO, Fla. — Cheered by President Bush's sagging poll ratings, Hispanic Democrats from New York to California met Saturday to coordinate strategy to generate maximum turnout in their communities for Sen. John Kerry, a candidate some admitted to feeling lukewarm about.
Hispanic voters could decide who wins the November election, said Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. If Democrats can capture two-thirds of the 3 million Hispanics who might cast their first ballots this year, that would be sufficient to tip Pennsylvania, Florida and Arizona, now electoral dead heats, into the Kerry column and ensure victory for the Democratic challenger, McAuliffe said.
Republicans also are working hard to court Hispanic voters, boosted by the personal popularity of President Bush, a former governor of Texas, among many Hispanics. McAuliffe accused Bush of engaging in the Republicans' "old song and dance" of policies on employment, education and immigration that he contended were hostile to Hispanics — although he joked that the president sometimes let himself be seen with a mariachi band.
"For Republicans, Hispanics are backdrops for photo opportunities," McAuliffe told the DNC's Hispanic Leadership Summit, attended by 350 Hispanic office holders and party officials from a score of states. "For Democrats, they are building blocks of the American dream."
To galvanize the Spanish-speaking electorate, participants in the meeting were told, the Democrats have cranked out a number of Spanish-language TV spots that focus on hot-button issues crucial to Hispanics, including jobs, schools and health care. Officials of the Kerry campaign also unveiled their "Unidos con Kerry" (United with Kerry) initiative, which is intended to increase Hispanic voter registration, education and fund raising across the country to the Democratic candidate's benefit.
But everyone at the session did not conceal his or her mixed feelings about Kerry, who has been accused of being slow to involve Hispanics in his campaign and to engage the nation's Hispanic voters. Marty Chavez, mayor of Albuquerque, N.M., and vice chair of the Democratic Mayors Association, told the meeting that if Kerry were to walk into the hotel ballroom where he and many other leading Hispanics in the party were conducting the two-day meeting, the Massachusetts senator wouldn't know more than five of the participants by name.
What's more, said Chavez, when Kerry's presidential campaign recently announced its 28 senior staff members, there was not a single Spanish-sounding surname on the list.
Raul Martinez, longtime mayor of Hialeah, Fla., and one of South Florida's few elected Democratic officials of Cuban origin, said Kerry's often aloof demeanor needed to undergo a radical change if the Democratic candidate meant to connect with Hispanics.
"We can say all the good things about the Democratic Party," Martinez said. "But if the candidate doesn't have it in his guts, and it doesn't show, people can't see it."
The Democratic conclave, held at a hotel inside Orlando International Airport, opened in the rosy glow of a recent opinion poll, conducted for CNN and Time magazine, that found Kerry leading Bush, 51 percent to 46 percent. In February, a similar survey of likely voters had Bush ahead by two percentage points. A Newsweek poll release Saturday put Bush's job approval rating at 42 percent. "It's obvious the public is realizing this president has done a really bad job with the country," said Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Fabiola Rodriguez-Ciampoli, who is leaving her job to become the Kerry campaign's spokeswoman for Hispanic media.
Democrats who spoke at Saturday's session accused the Bush administration of presiding over the highest Hispanic unemployment in a decade, reneging on promises of federal aid to schools and refusing changes in immigration law that would promote family reunification.
"It's time for us to send a clear message: 'Bush, you're fired,' " said Joel Rivera, majority leader on the New York City Council.