Democracia on McCain outreach: "I just don't see it."

Democracia USA, the Miami-based Hispanic political outreach group, held a press conference in Orlando Thursday to tout the region's growing swing Latino voting base and try to entice both presidential candidates to talk about their issues.

But Democracia President Jurge Mursuli was blunt when we asked what Hispanic outreach he was seeing in Florida from Republican John McCain.

"I don't," he said after the press conference. "I think he has some traditional allies here helping ... I just don't see a lot of investment by the McCain folks. I assume it's in the works. I just don't see it yet."

Democrat Barack Obama announced earlier this week his campaign and the Democratic National Committee were devoting $20 million for Hispanic outreach this election cycle. Obama's campaign has been up with Spanish-language radio ads. And according to last week's Pew survey and today's Quinnipiac poll, he's leading among Latino voters both nationally and in Florida. Quinnipiac found Florida's Hispanic voters favored Obama 56-36 percent over McCain.

Even so, Obama can't sit idly by, Mursuli said. Central Florida's Hispanic population has nearly doubled to 650,000 since 2000. Latino voters have grown from 6 percent to 12 percent of the total area’s electorate over that time, and have been hardly monolithic.

They went for Al Gore in 2000, then Gov. Jeb Bush two years later, then presidential candidate John Kerry two years after that. Given McCain's history with Hispanic voters in Arizona and his strong support they gave him in the primary, McCain can rebound if he moves away from hard-right anti-immigrant positions, he said.

Meanwhile, "Hispanic voters are very relationship-oriented, and most Hispanics don't know Obama yet," he said.

Quinnipiac assistant polling director Peter Brown agreed. "Sen. McCain is not doing nearly as well with Hispanics as President Bush did ... but clearly, Obama has not closed the sale."

UPDATE: McCain spokesman Mario Diaz said Florida Hispanics "gave John McCain a decisive victory during the primary and they will do so on Election Day because he has a proven record of fighting for their values and principles for two decades."

by Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel