Romney Spanish ad asks: “Can we allow Democrats to continue fooling us?”
Romney’s campaign is seeking to convince Latinos that Obama doesn’t deserve reelection.
The Romney campaign argues in a new Spanish-language ad that President Obama is “fooling” Latinos into supporting him, even though they have felt the brunt of the recession.
The 30-second spot released Wednesday opens with Obama’s famous 2008 campaign refrain “Yes we can!” (Sí se puede!) and then an on-screen message asks, “Can we?” The ad claims that Obama’s policies are to blame for 10 percent unemployment and loss of household wealth in the Latino community.
“Can we allow for Democrats to continue fooling us?” asks the narrator in Spanish. “When Obama and his Democrat allies tell us ‘Yes, we can!’ We’ve got to tell them we no longer can.”
Romney faces a staggering deficit among Latino voters; he has trailed Obama by an average of 44 percentage points nationwide dating back to last year, according to a Univision polling analysis. That could endanger Romney’s chances of winning in battleground states with booming Latino populations like Florida, Nevada, Colorado, and Virginia.
The economic pain felt in the Latino community would seem to give Romney an opening, but so far he has failed to capitalize. That’s in part because a majority of Latinos generally agree with Obama’s economic platform and continue to blame President Bush for the recession, according to polls.
Obama and Democrats have painted Romney as an unacceptable option for Latinos, due to his hard-line stance on immigration and his small-government agenda. But Romney has countered that Democrats have falsely assumed their Latino support.
“He’s taking your vote for granted,” Romney said of Obama at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. “I’ve come here today with a simple message: You do have an alternative. Your vote should be respected. And your voice is more important now than ever before.”
Romney’s campaign, which created the ad in conjunction with the Republican National Committee, did not say where or when the ad would air. As of two weeks ago, the Obama campaign has outspent Romney 12-1 on Spanish-language airwaves, which has helped him drown out Romney’s message to Spanish-speaking Latinos.
(Photo: Screenshot, YouTube)
