2004 political presidential cartoons about Iowa primary precinct caucus and caucuses news, reports  information on 2004 Democrat and Republican candidates, campaigns  issues

"We're Hispanic"
Joe Lieberman, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich political cartoon.

July 1, 2003 … Lieberman opens AZ campaign headquarters today. Chicago Tribune’s Zeleny expands on weekend coverage of Latino confab. Excerpts from yesterday’s Chicago Tribune – under the headline, “Democrats targeting Latino vote out West” – report by national correspondent Jeff Zeleny: “The states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico are under the careful watch of Democrats these days as party strategists begin punching their calculators and sketching their road maps for the 2004 presidential campaign. The four Western states, often overlooked as mere flyover territory by politicians en route from Washington to California, may hold a trove of voters that could benefit the Democratic Party’s uphill quest to win back the White House…Tuesday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut will become the first of the Democratic presidential candidates to open a campaign headquarters in Arizona, in a storefront office between Uncle Jed's Cut Hut and a Coast Guard recruiting office in downtown Phoenix. At the weekend forum, Democratic hopefuls criticized Bush for allowing the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to stand in the way of the immigration reform that he pledged during his last campaign…Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, began his address to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials in Spanish. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts peppered his remarks in Spanish. And Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio read long passages in Spanish, but his halting, slow delivery stirred awkward laughter from some in the audience. Finally, when it was Al Sharpton's turn to address the crowd, he admonished his fellow Democrats for pandering to the Latino audience but failing to address their issues of concern. ‘I remind you that George Bush can speak Spanish,’ said Sharpton, the New York civil rights activist. ‘But he's wrong in English and Spanish.’ In the Pew Hispanic Center poll conducted last year, registered Latino voters ranked education as the most important issue, followed by jobs and the economy. Only 8 percent of the respondents listed Social Security as the most important issue, while 5 percent listed terrorism. Rudolfo de la Garza, a political science professor at Columbia University, said some politicians mistakenly believe Latino voters are interested in different issues than other voting blocs. And even more candidates, he said, mistakenly try to speak Spanish. ‘Most of those things are really cosmetic,’ said de la Garza, who has extensively studied the Hispanic electorate. ‘Latinos have made it clear for sometime now that they want you to speak their language, but that could be in English or Spanish.’ Despite surveys that say Hispanics are likely to lean Democratic, several party officials say the Latino electorate is independent-minded, difficult to categorize and almost certainly up for grabs. No place more so, perhaps, than in New Mexico, where Bush lost to Al Gore by only 366 votes.”