Posted By:
Al C.risafulliJeff:
Although I've never heard you (no offense - it's not you; commercial radio just does nothing for me), the impression I'm under is that you occasionaly host a talk radio show on the largest talk radio station in the country. Which means that you talk to more people over the radio than almost everyone else who sits behind a microphone. Whether or not that's your primary occupation, or whether or not you consider it to be more than something you just do for fun, I'd call you a member of the media.
Jim, those numbers are interesting. I'm curious as to where you got them. Your stats say that the population of New Mexico is 37%. The US Census would indicate that the number is actually higher - it's 44%.
But your statement wasn't about the overall Hispanic population in those states - it was about the CHANGE in Hispanic population in those states. In the 2000 Census, the population of New Mexico was 42.1% - a 1.9% percentage point increase. The increase in Hispanic population across the country on average - again, according to the US Census - was 2.3 percentage points.
Your point, as I understood it, was not that the Latino population of the battleground states was high. It was that the population had somehow materially changed since the last election. The numbers do not bear that out.
I do agree that any political candidate, in order to win, needs to address the needs of the population in general, including all its ethnicities. To me, that's kind of the point.
-Al