Poll Says Hispanics Shifting To Democrats
Change Would Reverse Years Of Edging Toward GOP

POSTED: 10:44 pm EST December 6, 2007
UPDATED: 9:13 am EST December 7, 2007
[ highlights mine ]

WASHINGTON -- Hispanics are returning to the Democratic Party after several years of drifting toward the Republicans, with many saying Bush administration policies have been harmful to their community, a poll showed Thursday.

By 57 percent to 23 percent, more Hispanic registered voters say they favor Democrats than Republicans, according to a survey by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center.

That 34 percentage point Democratic edge -- which includes people who said they lean toward either party -- has grown since July 2006, when a Pew poll measured a 21 point difference. Then, 49 percent of registered Hispanic voters said they favored Democrats and 28 percent chose Republicans.

In 1999 before President George W. Bush's election, more Hispanics favored Democrats than Republicans by 58 percent to 25 percent -- about the same margin as in the current poll.

When the former Texas governor became president in 2001, Republicans saw an opportunity to woo Hispanics to the GOP. But as the 2008 presidential campaign has heated up, immigration has become a major issue and GOP candidates have competed over who could concoct the toughest plan for cracking down on illegal immigration.

The survey found that among Hispanic registered voters:

Forty-one percent said Bush administration policies have been harmful to Hispanics, 16 percent said they have been helpful and 33 percent said they have not had much impact.

Forty-four percent said Democrats have more concern for Hispanics, 8 percent chose Republicans and another 41 percent said there is no difference.

Forty-one percent said Democrats do a better job of handling illegal immigration, 14 percent named the GOP and 26 percent said neither.

Younger Hispanics are slightly more inclined than older ones to be Democrats, while those with higher incomes lean more toward the GOP than those with lower earnings, the poll showed.

Using September 2007 Census Bureau data and projecting from 2004 voting behavior, Pew estimated there would be 8.6 million Hispanic voters next year -- 1 million more than in 2004.

While that would be a small portion of the overall expected vote, Pew estimated that Hispanics comprise a large enough share of eligible voters to affect the outcome in four states where Bush prevailed in 2004 by 5 percentage points or fewer: New Mexico, Florida, Colorado and Nevada.

Among Hispanics who are registered Democrats, 59 percent said they want Hillary Rodham Clinton to be their party's presidential candidate, followed by 15 percent who prefer Barack Obama. Among Hispanic Republicans, Rudy Giuliani leads Fred Thompson, 35 percent to 13 percent.

The survey involved telephone interviews with 2,003 randomly chosen Hispanics conducted from Oct. 3 through Nov. 9. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points. It included 843 Hispanic registered voters, for whom the margin of sampling error was plus or minus 4 points.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

Source: TheBostonChannel.com news article at http://www.thebostonchannel.com/politics/14795189/detail.html  

Related Link:  Poll Results at http://pewhispanic.org/

Political Punch
Power, pop, and probings from ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper

Hillary Si! Obama No! -- Que?

February 06, 2008 10:04 AM
Jake Tapper - ABC News' Senior National Correspondent
[ highlights mine ]

Hillary Si! Obama No! -- Que?
February 06, 2008 10:04 AM

One of the big developments on the Democratic side last night was the huge turnout by Latinos for Sen. Hillary Clinton, winning that key demographic by a two-to-one margin in two states Sen. Barack Obama lost -- New Jersey and California.

Forget for our purposes the black-brown divide, as seen with the comment by Clinton pollster (and Latino voting expert) Sergio Bendixen who told the New Yorker "the Hispanic voter -- and I want to say this very carefully -- has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates." (A notion factually disputed by LA Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez HERE).

And forget for our purposes the notion of endorsements -- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Cesar Chavez's grandson, and United Farm Workers Union co-founder Dolores Huerta for Clinton…Rep. Congressman Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., Sen. Eduardo Kennedy, D-Mass, for Obama…

Let's focus on issues.

Because it seems to this gringo that Obama has a decent case to make.

Yes, the Clintons have a long and proud record of reaching out to Latinos, and former President Bill Clinton was the first to put two Latinos in his Cabinet simultaneously.

But Sen. Hillary Clinton has decidedly carved out a more moderate -- dare I say conservative? -- position on illegal immigration.

Surely some observers will see this as wise positioning for the general election. And yes, that's smart politics. And it's also in alignment with how the American people in general feel about the issue.

But Clinton's middle ground could seem to be a position that would alienate some Latinos.

The fact that she's been able to stake out this middle ground while winning Latinos would indicate defter political skills than she's given credit for, as well as a failure by the Obama campaign.

In Iowa last December, for instance, Clinton sent out this mailer opposing drivers licenses for “Those Who Are Here Illegally.” (An issue where she differs from Obama.)

The mailer called for “tougher penalties on companies that employ illegal immigrants” and “no drivers licenses for those who are here illegally."

Reasonable positions, you might think, but surely not ones that would necessarily lead to a 2-1 victory among Latinos a few weeks later.

When I first really realized how un-liberal her position on illegal immigration was, you may recall the quiz I gave readers, asking them to guess the candidate based on the rhetoric. The rhetoric (in Iowa, at least) is to the right of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

"Now, some people say, 'OK round everybody up and deport them," she said. "That sounds really good. I hear that on TV, I hear it on the radio. But let me ask you how that actually works. You see, I don't want to tell you something that sounds good and then have you wake up later and say, 'Wait a minute --nobody said it was going to cost that much or be that hard.'"

It's not a humanitarian argument against rounding people up -- it's a pragmatic, budgetary one.

And, we should note, this isn't new.

In a February 2003 radio interview with WABC, Clinton said, “I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants.”  

She called for "at least a visa ID, some kind of an entry and exit ID. And, you know, perhaps, although I'm not a big fan of it, we might have to move towards an ID system even for citizens."

"People have to stop employing illegal immigrants," she said. "I mean, come up to Westchester, go to Suffolk and Nassau counties, stand on the street corners in Brooklyn or the Bronx; you're going to see loads of people waiting to get picked up to go do yard work and construction work and domestic work."

This has gotten her some positive attention on the right, such as here at NewsMax.com.

Conservative commentator Tony Blankley called her remarks "Pat Buchanan-esque."

He meant it as a compliment.

"I never thought I would write the following words," Blankley wrote, "but: God bless Hillary Clinton."

Perhaps there are some Latino readers out there who can shed some light on this…I find it a bit confounding.

- jpt

Source:  ABC News online blog at
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/hillary-si-obam.html

Can Black Candidate Woo Hispanics?  

Sunday, February 10, 2008 12:59 PM
Associated Press
[ highlights mine ]

PHOENIX -- His rallying cry echoes the late Cesar Chavez, the Latino activist who inspired legions with three simple words, "Si, se puede!" The loose translation _ "Yes, we can!" _ has become Barack Obama's call to arms. But now, some are asking: Can he?

After a dismal showing among Hispanics in his Super Tuesday showdown with Hillary Clinton, can Obama entice this key voting bloc? And, if not, what might that say about a color divide that extends beyond black-white in an ever-expanding brown America?

Going forward in a neck-and-neck race, the ability to win Hispanic voters will prove vital in the March 4 primary in Texas, where nearly 25 percent of eligible voters are Hispanic. It could even push a tight race into one camp or the other in places like Maryland and Washington, D.C., where the Latino share of eligible voters in this Tuesday's primary hovers at just 3 and 4 percent, respectively.

"Let's face it," said popular Spanish-language radio host Luis Jimenez, "Hispanics will vote for a woman president before voting for someone who is African-American."

While the overall tally of Super Tuesday's string of contests was hardly conclusive in determining the ultimate Democratic presidential nominee, the results among Hispanics spoke volumes: Clinton, exit polls showed, won 63 percent of Hispanic voters, helping propel her to victory in places like Arizona and California, where a whopping 67 percent of Hispanics backed her.

Even in Obama's home state of Illinois, where he soundly beat Clinton, polls showed he merely split the Latino vote.

Is this about familiarity, a Johnny-come-lately strategy and a shortage of big-name Latino endorsements, or something less tangible and more provocative _ a reluctance among Latinos to support a black candidate?

The suggestion inflames Federico Pena, who served in President Clinton's cabinet and now sits as a national co-chair for the Obama campaign.

"That would say that Hispanics are racist. We are not," he said. "What is really going on here is that Hispanics simply don't know this candidate, and he happens to be African-American and he happens to be named Barack Obama."

Louis DeSipio, a political scientist who chairs the Chicano studies program at the University of California, Irvine, agreed: "It's not a rejection of Sen. Obama. It's an affirmation of their support for Sen. Clinton."

Clearly, Clinton had advantages over Obama that had nothing to do with color.

She is well-known and well-liked among Hispanic voters who remember fondly her husband's presidency and the inclusion of Latinos such as Pena. She won coveted _ and early _ endorsements of prominent Hispanics, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who traveled to Iowa and Nevada to campaign for Clinton, and Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers with Chavez.

She also got a jump-start wooing Hispanic voters on the ground and on the airwaves, while Obama's initial underdog status had him focused on early contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. In January, Clinton went door-to-door in a largely Hispanic neighborhood in Las Vegas, and turned up a day later at King Taco on Los Angeles' Cesar Chavez Boulevard with Villaraigosa.

"Hillary Clinton has a long relationship with the Hispanic community ... based on her work but also her husband's presidency, so it's not surprising that Hispanics went for her more than Obama," said Susan Minushkin, deputy director of the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center. Minushkin was, in fact, surprised that Clinton's numbers among Hispanics weren't even higher.

A December survey by the center found Democratic-leaning Latinos who were registered voters overwhelmingly supported Clinton. Still, that same survey found that Obama drew more support among those voters than New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson _ himself a Hispanic who speaks Spanish fluently and who lived more than a decade in Mexico City.

A November Pew study found that 74 percent of Hispanics who were familiar with Obama regarded him favorably. However, the percentage of those polled saying they had never heard of Obama, or were unable to rate him, was higher among Hispanics than blacks or whites.

Still, others wonder whether such surveys accurately reflect the reality on American streets, where tensions among blacks and Hispanics have increased in past years as Hispanic immigrants pour into inner-city neighborhoods, competing with their black neighbors for jobs, housing, services _ and a seat at the table on local school boards and town councils.

Hispanics have surpassed blacks as the nation's largest minority, comprising about 15 percent of the U.S. population today.

"We've been fighting in this country for our place _ and so is every minority," Jimenez said, surmising that Hispanics' Super Tuesday snubbing of Obama stems from viewing him as "a competing minority rather than a serious candidate for president."

Mistrust fueled by racial stereotypes that play out in Hollywood and mass media may also contribute, along with prejudices that may have first formed in the class-driven societies of some Hispanics' native lands, where darker-skinned indigenous citizens are sometimes looked down upon by those with lighter skin and a Spanish heritage.

Armando Navarro heard mentions of race when trying to convince friends to vote for Obama. Navarro teaches ethnic studies at the University of California, Riverside, and is coordinator of the National Alliance for Human Rights, a Hispanic activist organization.

Color, he said, while not THE factor in the Super Tuesday results was A factor.

"It stems from our own experience as a people," he said, but also that competitiveness that Jimenez cites _ "the fear that with a black president, `they're' really going to be in and `we're' going to be out."

Consider the view of another voter, Gustavo Sanchez, a Los Angeles painter originally from Mexico.

"Obama is African-American so his support would naturally come more from blacks. And I think he would support blacks more," said Sanchez, who voted for Clinton in the California primary.

Sanchez said tension between blacks and Hispanics wasn't a factor in his choice, but that it likely weighed on some people.

"There is a division between blacks and Hispanics," he said. "There has never been much unity between the two minorities."

Others, especially younger Latino voters, dismissed the idea of a divide driving election-time decisions.

"Latinos who are under 40, we have black friends and we have colleagues," said Miguel Orozco, a thirtysomething in Los Angeles who launched "Amigos de Obama" last year to help introduce Obama to Hispanic voters. "We don't see that whole friction or divide or whatever. That wouldn't be a reason why folks I know would not support Obama. They just don't know what he's about."

When the nation's largest daily Spanish-language newspaper, Los Angeles-based La Opinion, endorsed Obama as the Democratic choice, letters and phone calls streamed in from readers wanting to know why, said editorial page editor Henrik Rehbinder.

A few readers described "a bad experience" with blacks, or worried a black president wouldn't care as much about Latinos and their issues. But most complained _ as Orozco suggested _ they simply didn't know enough about the senator from Illinois. They weren't aware of his stance in support of giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, or his history as the son of a Kenyan immigrant.

"The question is: `What did he do?'" said Rehbinder. "When you don't know a person, you operate by stereotypes. That was a big difference ... between a candidate who is very well known and somebody who is a trend now but very new _ and Latinos don't really go for it. They need a bit more."

That "comfortability" is especially important to Hispanic voters, said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a black political activist and the author of several books on race and politics, including "The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House" and "The Latino Challenge to Black America."

Black candidates such as U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, New York City Mayor David Dinkins and the late Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, can win the Latino vote, but they must be "an ironclad, known quantity," Hutchinson said.

"Hispanics have to be absolutely sure there's no tilt toward African-Americans, that they're going to be a clear advocate and a clear champion for Latino interests," he said. "It's pretty difficult, particularly on short notice, to break that down. You've got to spend time on the ground in these communities _ up close and personal."

Obama and Hispanic advisers such as Pena seem to have grasped that. A few days before the Super Tuesday primaries, the campaign dispatched Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to Hispanic centers in New Mexico. And Obama himself addressed the so-called black-brown divide during an appearance in Los Angeles. "Cynical talk," he called it _ the kind he hopes to move past.

Pena insisted Obama already is overcoming it.

Look at Colorado, he said, where nearly 12 percent of the electorate is Hispanic. Obama won that state on Tuesday. And New Mexico, where Hispanics account for a third of caucus voters. That race was still too close to call days after the election, with officials counting provisional ballots. Even in Arizona, where Clinton won the Hispanic vote, the tilt was less than it was in California _ 55 percent to Obama's 41.

Pena pointed to Obama's own growing list of Latino supporters _ among them Maria Elena Durazo, head of the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, and U.S. Rep. Linda Sanchez, who represents communities south of Los Angeles _ and promised more endorsements were on the way. (U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez of Orange County _ Sanchez's sister _ has come out for Clinton.)

Obama also will be spending more time with Latinos in Latino communities, Pena said, especially as the Texas contest nears.

"When Barack has the time, and when we have an opportunity to physically present him, he gets very strong support in the Latino community," Pena said. "Our race is a race against time."

All of that could go a long way toward overcoming the myriad and complex factors for his lagging Latino support, and "maybe a lot of Hispanics will think about electing him," said radio host Jimenez.

Added Rehbinder: "I think Latinos could vote for an African-American. They just have to know him, and this African-American has to reach them _ in their way."
___

Associated Press writer Peter Prengaman contributed to this report from Los Angeles.

© 2008 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: Newsmax.com news article at http://www.newsmax.com/politics/the_brown_black_vote/2008/02/10/71558.html

Obama, McCain and their awkward Hispanic outreach

Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 7:17am
ORLANDO, Fla.
Associated Press
[ highlights mine ]

Like eager but awkward suitors, Barack Obama and John McCain are working hard and sometimes fumbling in their efforts to court Hispanic voters who could swing November's presidential election.

For the African-American Obama and white Anglo McCain, the problem is less one of language than of trying to understand a group whose own diversity can make it a mystery to others. It's not a simple matter of saying, "Take me to your leaders."

But that, in essence, is the ground game the presidential candidates and their campaigns have been playing in pitching to voters who could form decisive constituencies in critical battleground states.

"They just come to me and say, 'Who are the bosses of the Latin community?'" said Patrick Manteiga, who runs a family-owned newspaper for Hispanics in Tampa's historic Cuban neighborhood of Ybor City. "That's like coming and asking, 'Who are the bosses of white America, of the soccer moms?'"

Both candidates are pressing their case in three speeches in as many weeks to Hispanic umbrella groups and working in other ways to make their outreach more sophisticated. Republicans have opened an office in Orlando, where most of the state's Puerto Ricans live, and Obama opens one this week in Ybor City.

They've both got their work cut out for them in appealing to a large and growing segment of the population that has leaned Democratic but has not always been motivated to vote. A recent AP-Yahoo News poll found Obama leading McCain 47 percent to 22 percent among Hispanic voters, with 26 percent undecided.

McCain is respected by many Hispanics for refusing to pander to anti-immigrant sentiment over the years. Yet he is viewed in some Latin quarters as a sequel to the unpopular President Bush, a problem he has with voters at large, too.

Obama's vitality and soaring oratory appeal to Hispanics just as they do to others. Whoops of approval were heard throughout his speech this week to the League of United Latin American Citizens' convention.

Yet Obama emerged from Democratic primaries a distant second to rival Hillary Rodham Clinton among most Hispanic groups. Like voters at large, Latino voters question the one-term senator's experience. And there are tensions between blacks and Hispanics.

Hispanic voters are hardly monolithic. Some in the West have roots going back more than two centuries, while others were sworn in as citizens last week. Some consider themselves white and some black, and many represent every shade in between.

During the last presidential election, Hispanics in key swing states such as Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Florida represented anywhere from 8 percent to more than 30 percent of voters, according to exit polls, and their numbers are only expected to grow this year.

THE CLINTONITES

Clara Apodaca, 73, of Las Cruces, N.M., is among the Clinton supporters who quickly made the shift to Obama. The longtime Democrat was hoping to see a woman in the Oval Office, but she now believes Obama would be the best candidate to handle the economy, the war and the country's reputation.

"We're so badly thought of throughout the world," she said. "We need to shore up our relationships."

Yet 64-year-old Denver resident Paul Sandoval, who was also a Clinton supporter, has yet to make up his mind.

"Obama has not sold me that he's the best candidate, regardless if he's a Democrat," the Mexican restaurant owner said as he served up eggs for the morning crowd. "I'm going to wait. I'm going to see how they perform on that stage, answering those hard questions."

And then there is Fernando Romero, a former casino executive and longtime political organizer in Las Vegas. Romero advised Democratic candidate Bill Richardson, but he calls Obama's relationship with Hispanics shallow. For now, he's backing McCain.

"Unfortunately (Obama) is the one that we know nothing about and has made little effort to communicate with us," Romero said. "There are so many good qualities that Senator McCain has _ and proven qualities."

THE REPUBLICANS

The McCain campaign is counting on such voters, hoping they will judge him as an individual and not a fixture of the Republican Party.

But the Republicans are seeing their own defections among Hispanic voters, especially in Florida, where for the first time more are registered as Democrats than Republicans.

McCain remains popular among Cuban-Americans in Miami, who tend to vote Republican and admire his military record and his support for U.S. policy toward Cuba. The campaign unveiled its Florida Hispanic steering committee last week with names of roughly 100 active Hispanic supporters from throughout the state. But a crowd of nearly 1,000 people, many of them Cuban-Americans, turned out to hear Obama speak at a private luncheon in May. An Obama campaign sticker briefly peaked out from the wall outside Little Havana's famed Versailles restaurant last month, a traditional gathering point for Republican hard-liners.

Jesus Mendoza, 51, owner of the Tijerazo barber shop in Tampa, explained his change of heart as he wielded his scissors.

I'm a true Republican," said the Puerto Rican native. "I believe people should work hard and get less help. But the Republicans have been in power for eight years, and I don't think things are better. Obama, he's a young candidate, but he's intelligent. Even though I'm a Republican, I'm not blind."

In Orlando, Angie Thillet, 38, who voted twice for Bush, is leaning toward Obama because he proposes to get the country close to universal health care.

Thillet went without insurance coverage for years, despite white-collar jobs. She has insurance now through her employment at a funeral home, yet she was afraid to go to the doctor after she hit her head in the bathtub because her deductible is more than $1,200.

She doesn't like the hype surrounding Obama, especially comparisons to John F. Kennedy. Still, she says, "I won't be voting for McCain."

If talk radio is any measure, Obama is making inroads. Magda Yvette Torres, a two-time Bush supporter and host of a Spanish-language program in central Florida, fielded calls heavily in favor of the Democrat on one recent show.

"Most of my listeners supported Hillary Clinton, and a few months ago, you would have heard a lot of these same people calling in to criticize Obama, more than a few talking about his race," Torres said.

TEXAS IN FLUX

Although Texas Hispanics have tended to vote Democratic, in the 2004 presidential election, Bush, the state's former governor, split their vote with Democrat John Kerry. Now their support may be up for grabs again _ not enough perhaps to swing the state but enough to force McCain to spend more resources there.

Obama's personal appeal won over San Antonio office manager Naomi Mathews, 35. The Mexican-American considers herself a Republican but is leaning toward Obama. She was impressed that he held a town hall across the street from the coffee shop where she works.

"Maybe it's the whole change thing," said Mathews. "He made an impression on us. Maybe we can trust this person."

Mathews was one of many Hispanic voters, among dozens interviewed by The Associated Press, who said they wanted more of a direct pitch from the candidates.

Angelette Aviles, 32, an active supporter of McCain, believes he will help the economy and be tough in the international arena. But she was frustrated by a recent South Florida radio ad highlighting a former Cuban political prisoner's support for McCain.

"It's like, OK, I think the hardcore voters in Miami are going to vote for the Republicans no matter what," she said. "The younger generation, they're more concerned about bread and butter issues. You need to reach out to us."

Manteiga, a Democrat, said Hispanics want more than Obama's stadium speeches or McCain's town-hall meetings.

"No one is meeting with the 40 Latin ministries, as they would in the black community," he said. "Latins want a hug. They want a touch. If 300 or 400 people shake the candidate's hand, that translates exponentially into votes when they talk to their family and friends."

MATTERS OF RACE

Manteiga said a personal connection is most important for Obama because he must convince Hispanics who are uncomfortable voting for a black candidate.

Many Hispanics interviewed by the AP acknowledged tensions on that front, because of competition over jobs and services or because of prejudice. Yet many also said these issues would not be the deciding factor for them, especially in a year when the economy and the war in Iraq loom large.

"To me, being Hispanic, the government caters to blacks," said Eddie Martinez, 51, of Las Vegas. "Anything the government is giving away goes to blacks first."

Even so, Martinez plans to vote for Obama because he believes the Illinois senator would be the best at bringing jobs to the area.

Manny Genao, a Dominican native, has run the popular Cafe Madrid in east Orlando for years and proudly displays portraits of local Republican leaders across his walls.

Genao said people in his neighborhood complained about an uptick in crime with the influx of "the diverse people" who poured in from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

In the next breath, he said the Bush administration was too close to the oil companies and that he views McCain as more of the same. Then he compared Obama's speeches to those of Martin Luther King Jr.

"I'm still undecided," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Felicia Fonseca in Albuquerque, N.M., Kathleen Hennessey in Las Vegas, Sarah Karush in Washington, Ivan Moreno in Denver and Elizabeth White in San Antonio contributed to this report.

©2008 Mediacom Communications Corporation

Source:  Mediacom news headlines

McCain Rebukes Hispanic Voters
Stung over the voting bloc's 2-to-1 support of Obama in November, the senator says to look to the new president for immigration leadership.

by Kirk Victor
[ highlights mine ]
Saturday, April 4, 2009

John McCain sounds angry and frustrated that, despite the risks he took in pushing immigration reform, Hispanic voters flocked to Democrat Barack Obama in last year's presidential contest. McCain's raw emotions burst forth recently as he heatedly told Hispanic business leaders that they should now look to Obama, not him, to take the lead on immigration.

The meeting in the Capitol's Strom Thurmond Room on March 11 was a Republican effort led by Sens. McCain of Arizona, John Thune of South Dakota, and Mel Martinez of Florida to reach out to Hispanics. But two people who attended the session say they were taken aback by McCain's anger.

What began as a collegial airing of views abruptly changed when McCain spoke about immigration, according to these sources, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. Anonymity was also requested by a third source, who was not at the meeting but was told, independently of the other two, that McCain had displayed his notorious temper.

"He was angry," one source said. "He was over the top. In some cases, he rolled his eyes a lot. There were portions of the meeting where he was just staring at the ceiling, and he wasn't even listening to us. We came out of the meeting really upset."

McCain's message was obvious, the source continued: After bucking his party on immigration, he had no sympathy for Hispanics who are dissatisfied with President Obama's pace on the issue. "He threw out [the words] 'You people -- you people made your choice. You made your choice during the election,' " the source said. "It was almost as if [he was saying] 'You're cut off!' We felt very uncomfortable when we walked away from the meeting because of that."

In 2006 and 2007, McCain was a leader on immigration, but his efforts ran aground largely because his legislation included what many Republicans derisively characterized as "amnesty," a pathway to citizenship for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants if they took a series of steps to earn legal status.

Having stuck his neck out in the past, McCain apparently is in no mood to do so again for an ethnic group he seems to view as ungrateful. On NBC's Meet the Press on March 29, McCain repeated his message that the ball is in the Democratic president's court. So far, the senator said, he has not seen much on immigration from the Obama White House, although the president recently met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and set the goal of launching the debate in the fall, a senior administration official said.

Asked on the show whether he would work with Obama on the issue, McCain said, "At any time, I stand ready. But the president has to lead."

McCain, who declined through his spokeswoman to be interviewed about his meeting with the Hispanic leaders, has been dogged throughout his career by stories highlighting his sometimes fierce temper. Both Martinez and Thune take issue with those who said that McCain raged at the group.

"What I saw... was John McCain saying, 'Look, I didn't get a lot of support from the Hispanic community,' which he deserved to have had," Martinez said. "It frustrated me. It frustrated him. [McCain said,] 'You guys thought this guy [Obama] was going to be your savior. Where is his leadership?' I sort of echo that. It's not like [the meeting] went badly, I don't think."

How did people attending the session react to McCain? Martinez said, "I think they thought he's still smarting a little bit. But I don't think they felt threatened or attacked or anything like that. I don't think so. My sense is the meeting was not ruined by John in any way, shape, or form."

Martinez, who is Hispanic, continued, "John is John. Sometimes when he talks, he talks forcefully. He wasn't ranting or raving or anything. I have seen John rant and rave. I don't think this was one of those moments."

Thune agreed: "It was a spirited discussion, but this sort of incendiary-type way that some people are characterizing it just doesn't fit at all the tone of the meeting." In fact, he added, "after it was over, [the guests] were taking photos [with the senators]. They were handing out business cards."

Carlos Loumiet, chairman of the board of the New America Alliance, a nonpartisan organization of American Latino business leaders, attended and said he has "nothing negative to say." McCain, he added, was "forceful on the need to bring forth comprehensive immigration and for the president to lead on it.... He was just very direct and very forceful."

McCain's communications director, Brooke Buchanan, also disputed the notion that her boss's temper had flared at the meeting. She did not attend, but said she had been briefed at length about it.

Buchanan noted McCain's history of pushing immigration reform in the face of staunch opposition from many in his party, his work across the aisle with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and his popularity among Hispanics in Arizona.

She insisted that the 72-year-old senator's use of the words "you people" was in response to a question about people in general who had voted for Obama and was not meant to refer to Hispanics. To imply otherwise, she said, is "character assassination."

Buchanan said McCain was not angry and was simply offering "a little bit of 'straight talk,' " the senator's pet phrase for his candor. "He gets impassioned about some of these issues, and that is one of them.... Whenever anyone wants to hurt McCain, they say he is angry."

But one person's straight talk is another person's vitriol. "My hands were shaking," one source said. "I was nervous as no-end." The senator's comments went on for several minutes at least. And by the end of the meeting, another participant, who had supported McCain in last year's presidential election, was so shaken by the display of temper that he decided it is good that McCain isn't in the White House.

McCain has become irate over immigration legislation before. During negotiations over a bill two years ago, he was so enraged by the comments of Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, that he got in Cornyn's face and said, "F-- you!"

"The F.U. story, which was, like, how long ago?" Buchanan asked. "Yes, it happened, but can anyone give me any other circumstance on any subject where that happened [since then]? And, frankly, [Cornyn and McCain] work together; they campaigned for each other.... As you know, he is an impassioned guy, but he has never lost his temper in the last couple of years."

Going forward, some of McCain's allies question whether Obama will be willing to lead on immigration, especially given what they saw as his failure to take risks to advance immigration reform when he was a senator. "He was AWOL most of the time," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said of Obama in an interview in July. "I learned a lot about Obama on immigration, and it wasn't good. I learned that to talk about bipartisan change and to stick by a bipartisan deal are two different things. He came by several times, more [for] the photo ops. The only time he came by, he wanted to re-litigate something that had already been decided."

Asked recently whether he would be surprised that McCain's feelings about Hispanic voters and immigration legislation sound very raw, Graham, who also took risks in backing the legislation, which was very unpopular in South Carolina, said: "John understands politics. But he is a human being, like all of us, and it is disappointing because he really was the driving force on the Republican side... to produce a bill that would solve this problem. And the groups that were cheering him on were gone when he needed them."

Hispanics gave Obama a whopping 67 percent of their votes, more than double the 31 percent they gave to McCain. A former colleague of McCain's, Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who opposed immigration reform, told National Journal, "John risked a lot to go out there and do what he did. They basically turned their back on him, a guy who had done a lot more for them than Barack Obama ever would. So I can understand his anger, but I also know that John doesn't get over things easily."

But Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., said in an interview that Hispanics' support for Obama was not a repudiation of McCain, who is highly regarded in the Latino community, but a repudiation of the Republican Party. "His party was his worst enemy in trying to reach out to the Latino community," Becerra said. "Left to his own devices, I think Senator McCain could have done very, very well -- and still could do well -- in the Latino community."

Martinez, upon learning -- in his words -- that National Journal was "getting a story that people were upset" about McCain's behavior at last month's meeting, called to elaborate on his earlier comments. "He did not offend people in that room," Martinez declared. "It was a cordial meeting. And, I think as I told you, John made his point about 'Obama needs to deliver, just like he promised that he would,' and that kind of thing. But, I mean, to suggest that somehow or another that this ended up as a blown-up meeting and people were upset and that McCain was ranting or anything like that, I just don't think that is accurate or the truth.

"I just don't want you to get misled by someone who is trying to screw McCain here, frankly, because he doesn't deserve it," Martinez added.

Source:  The National Journal online news article at http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/pi_20090404_9431.php