Apparently realizing that it is Hugo Chavez Day here at TAPPED, John McCain's campaign has released a new Spanish-language advertisement attempting to link Barack Obama to the Venezuelan leader. Chavez, you see, is one of the leaders that Obama would be willing to meet in his first year in office, which makes sense, since our relations with Venezuela could use some improvement and the U.S. hasn’t exactly been innocent in the belligerent-rhetoric department. But I was curious about the political effect of the ad -- how do Latino voters feel about Chavez? Will they really buy the connection between his rhetoric and Obama’s? I e-mailed Andres Ramirez, the head of Hispanic programs at the progressive organization NDN. His take:
“This ad could serve to appeal to the anti-Chavez Venezuelan voters in Florida as well as some Cuban voters who view Chavez as a Castro sympathizer. I do not think that this resonate very much in the other Hispanic battleground states such as Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado. I think the big worry that the Campaign has to have is that Hispanic voters no longer trust the McCain camp, and so these attacks may not help him, and furthermore they could backfire on him.”
That seems about right. Ramirez also noticed that we have no idea about the extent of the ad buy, so this could be another media stunt to get reporters talking about Chavez and Obama in the same sentence. If so, then touche, John McCain. Touche.
—Tim Fernholz
