If you can win a debate without answering a majority of the questions asked, Sarah Palin hit a home run. The Republican Vice Presidential nominee kept the debate on her own turf, returning to issues she felt comfortable talking about – energy, small town values, and taxes – and avoided delving into the nitty gritty of policies either foreign or domestic.

Asked about the subprime mortgage crisis, she went back to energy policy and taxes. Asked about whether she thought the Bush Administration had handled the Israel-Palestinian conflict well, she latched onto moderator’s Gwen Ifill’s mention of a two-state solution, limiting her comments to a policy issue that’s part of the colloquial dialogue about the Mideast and is widely approved of by all parties.

Palin also won on emotional appeal. She was likeable. She was funny and warm from the start. One of the best unexpected moments – she greeted Joe Biden at the start of the debate with a, “Can I call you Joe?”

She smiled broadly as she said over and over that Biden and Obama were too focused on the past, criticizing Bush’s record rather than offering better policies of their own. She seemed nice, next-door, homespun, even on the attack. But then didn’t we already know that about her?

Does that make someone worthy of being president? If Palin was expected to pass a commander in chief test, I wonder if voters felt she could step into those big shoes. The mention of Vice President Cheney’s use of his office made one think back to 9-11, when he played a significant role in helping govern the country. Could Palin do that?

That’s why Joe Biden won the night too. He showed a fluency with subjects and topics that make those uncomfortable with Barack Obama’s experience feel that there are people around him who would help him answer the 3AM phone call. Palin did not, but maybe that was never in Palin’s job description to begin with.

The nice thing as a viewer of this debate: It was civil. It was polite. It was nice to not see two candidates claw into each other for ninety minutes. But that raises another question.

Palin didn’t answer the questions. She made some mistakes. And Biden didn’t take the opportunities to go after her, as Palin at times attempted to do with him. It makes you wonder about the role of sexism, and did Biden treat her like any other opponent? Maybe that reflects the political manipulation of this campaign’s narrative. The McCain campaign turned questioning Palin about her past experience into charges of sexism. Would pushing Palin on the issues, calling her out about not answering the questions have been seen as Joe Biden unfairly going after her? It wouldn’t if he had been on stage with Hillary Clinton, as he often was during the primaries. Perhaps it’s experience-ism that was being practiced here, trying to purposely not show up someone who lacks knowledge of the issues.

To sum it up. No fireworks. No YouTube moments. Instead, a civil exchange on politics that will be remembered more for the hype that preceded it than what actually transpired over 90 minutes.

– Adiós Michigan? Just as we recently reported on George Lopez’s Latino outreach efforts in Michigan, Politico’s Jonathan Martin reports John McCain’s campaign is pulling out of the state, “a stunning move a month away from Election Day that indicates the difficulty Republicans are having in finding blue states to put in play.” See: McCain pulling out of Michigan

– Don’t You Threaten La Raza. “Christopher Michael Szaz was sentenced today in North Carolina for emailing a death threat to the staff of the National Council of La Raza,” says NCLR on its website. Don’t miss the kicker: “In an ironic twist of fate, it has come to light that Szaz’s Hungarian-born father, now deceased, was an immigrant activist in Washington.” See: NCLR Death Threat Punished in Court of Law

– Rifle [REE-fleh] is Spanish for Rifle. America’s Voice can’t even imagine “what it would have been like to be a fly on the wall in the focus group where the NRA developed the latest, most bizarre, approach to reeling in Latino voters of this election”: a Spanish-language TV ad running in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas that “yokes immigration fears to the gun rights debate by raising the specter of crime by illegals.” See: America’s Voice | How do you say backfire en Español?

– Fewer Undocumented Immigrants. The AP brings us the news that, “the number of illegal immigrants entering the United States has slowed significantly the past few years, falling below the number of those entering the country legally, according to the report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington think tank.” See: Illegal immigration declines as economy falters – By Stephen Ohlemacher/AP. See the Pew Hispanic Center’s report: Trends in Unauthorized Immigration: Undocumented Inflow Now Trails Legal Inflow.

– Immigration Robocop. Supporters of North Carolina Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s reelection campaign target her rival Kay Hagan. “Freedom’s Watch, a Washington-based conservative advocacy group, is making automated calls to North Carolina voters that say the Democratic Senate candidate is soft on illegal immigration,” says the Raleigh News and Observer. See: Robocall targets Hagan on immigration.

Lopez campaigns for Obama in Detroit (Photo: Freep.com|Detroit Free Press)

It was George Lopez doing the talking, but this time the punch line wasn’t funny.

“You cannot be happy with the last eight years,” the comedian said. “Do you like waking up everyday to banks closing?”

Lopez was speaking at a voter registration rally aimed at Detroit’s Hispanic community, held on Sept. 20, to discuss the important role Latinos will play in this year’s presidential election.

Polls in Michigan show Senators Barack Obama and John McCain in a statistical dead heat, with the Democrat enjoying a slight edge. The state is home to more than 400,000 Latinos, and Latinos make up only 4 percent of the electorate. But in an election that seems too close to call, they could decide which candidate wins Michigan’s 17 electoral votes.

Latino voters are the focus of much attention in the battleground states of New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Florida — but strategists are beginning to see that smaller burgeoning Hispanic communities in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio could have a hand in deciding the winner.

Latinos drove two and three hours to get a glimpse of the famous comedian and listen to what he had to say about his support for Obama.

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Pilar Marrero and Aswini Anburajan joined Brian Lehrer on Thursday (9/25/08) on WNYC, New York Public Radio to talk about the impact of mortgage foreclosures and the financial crisis on immigrants in the US. They also discussed how economic concerns may affect the election in battleground states like Nevada and Florida, which have large numbers of Latino voters.

Click here to listen to the segment.

In a piece that aired on Marketplace on Friday (9/26/08), Aswini Anburajan reports on the rising political influence of Indian Americans. During the presidential primaries, Indian American donors gave $5 million each to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and half a million dollars to John McCain. Now some of these Democratic voters are seeking to expand their national presence with a political action committee, the Indian American Leadership Initiative.

Listen to the full story on the Marketplace Web site.

Latinos are considered especially important as a voting population this year because it’s expected they’ll help decide whether four key battleground states go red or blue – Florida, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, for a total of 46 electoral college votes.

Of those four, Florida is by far the most important, the mother of all battleground states, with 27 electoral votes. The Sunshine State gave the Democratic campaign some encouraging news over the weekend, when a new poll showed Sen. Barack Obama holding a slight lead over Republican Sen. John McCain among Hispanics in Florida. Polls already showed Obama ahead in the other three “Hispanic battleground states.” Overall, the new poll says, he leads McCain 2-to-1 among Latinos in swing states.

The Orlando Sentinel gave these details on the new poll by Newlink Research:

Of those surveyed in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania, 63 percent said they would vote for Obama, while 27 percent preferred McCain.

In Florida, 49 percent of Hispanics surveyed favored Obama to McCain’s 43 percent, and the margin of error is 3.75 percentage points. Newlink Research polled 684 likely voters in those key states.

Previous polls had given McCain a slight lead or called Florida a virtual tie, which seems to show it’s too early to make any definitive judgment on which direction Florida’s Latinos are going to lean. (more…)

With the presidential candidates focused mainly on the threat of an economic collapse and Friday’s foreign policy debate, other campaign issues are not getting a lot of attention. Still, last Monday Sen. John McCain made a campaign appearance in front of a largely Irish-American audience in Scranton, Pa., “often described as the country’s most heavily Irish city,” according to the Boston Globe.

McCain promised to address the issue of immigration if elected. And he said he would put undocumented immigrants “on a path to citizenship,” according to the Irish Voice.

There are 50,000 Irish men and women in this country illegally at this time who are hard working people and who want to become citizens.

It seems many in the audience did not agree with him on the issue, which has been contentious in local campaigns. Irish-American attendees interviewed by the Irish Voice opposed the idea of legalization for undocumented immigrants.

“As a first generation in this country, my mother came over here through all the channels. I don’t see why anybody else should be allowed come into this country and live off of what we have worked for all of our lives,” said one of them.

It may sound surprising, considering the number of undocumented Irish living in the U.S. But as another interviewee said, “I just never thought of Irish as being illegal.” (more…)

Journalist Diego Graglia has been documenting the lives of Latinos during this presidential election year. He recently traveled from New York City to Mexico City, stopping along the way to talk to Latinos in small towns and big cities about the issues that matter to them. For more on La Ruta del Voto Latino/The Road to the Latino Vote visit www.newyorktomexico.com.

In a previous post, Diego Graglia wrote about his visit to New Orleans, where Hispanic Americans had long assimilated into the local mainstream culture, which in effect, made them “invisible.”

While in New Orleans, he interviewed Diane Schnell, news and marketing director of the local Telemundo station, KGLA-TV 42, which has recently launched the city’s first-ever Spanish-language newscast.

In this podcast, Diane talks about how the Latino community is no longer an invisible market in New Orleans, and which presidential candidate is doing more to reach out to New Orleans’ Latinos.

[audio:http://www.jocelyngonzales.net/FI2W/fi2w_laruta_diane.mp3]

It took Ryszard Klimek seven years to register to vote.

Since he became a citizen in 2001, American politics was not a subject of his interest. “Politics in my country is a parody. So I lost interest in it and I didn’t feel like getting involved here either,” says Ryszard, 35, who came to America in 1995 and works as an electrician. When he was 16, the Communist regime that ruled Poland for decades tumbled. Since then the newly-created Polish democracy has turned into a rampant form of pluralism where parties easily come into being, merge or cease to exist, amidst divisions and disagreements.

To Ryszard, American politics seemed very different than what he knew from his home country, and not being proficient in English, it was very difficult for him to understand it. But this year he decided to finally register and vote.

“The candidates are more interesting and the issues are important,” said Ryszard, pointing out the war in Iraq, immigration reform, and the declining economy.

This year’s election ignites excitement across American society, including immigrant voters who hope to see the issues they care about addressed by the candidates.

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This story is by Macollvie Jean-François, a Haitian-American news reporter with the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.

On a recent Thursday night at a Haitian restaurant near Fort Lauderdale, Karl Heintz held court at a table where he sat with a half dozen other Haitian men. Over a heap of bronzed chicken and mounds of rice and beans, Heintz, a 36-year-old small-business owner, gave a 15-minute synopsis of the presidential race and the candidates that would rival that of any cable news network political analyst. He went from Barack Obama’s 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention to Sarah Palin’s interview with Charles Gibson.

About a week later at the Palm Beach County Civic Center in Delray Beach, about 80 Haitian-Americans assembled for a Haitians for Obama rally. When a few people pulled out checkbooks to donate, Frantz Richard, 54, persuaded them to do it online instead. He keyed in their credit card and other personal information on the laptop right there at the reception area.

Excitement over Obama’s candidacy and disenchantment with the Bush administration have combined to push Heintz, Richard and other Haitians to actively campaign this year. Heintz said he’s not part of any formal groups, but he stays informed, has made nearly $500 in campaign contributions over several months, and he understands how close the election could be. (The 537 votes that cost Gore Florida in 2000 are becoming something close to a mantra, with many people alluding to them in cautionary tones.)

Haitian-American users on Facebook and MySpace, meanwhile, have been circulating information about the candidates for months. 

Within this mostly-Democratic voting bloc, most of the campaign events in South Florida are pro-Obama. Most Haitian-Americans support the Democrat unabashedly, citing his inspiring success in America as a black man with a “hyphenated identity.” His migration experience and his exposure to world cultures resonate with them as immigrants.

On the other hand, efforts supporting the Democratic ticket seem belated and less visible than during previous elections, for a variety of reasons— the online outreach option being one. Four years ago, you couldn’t drive two blocks in the traditional Haitian enclaves without seeing a storefront window plastered with red-white-blue campaign posters. However, quite a few Haitians for Obama groups have emerged since Hillary Clinton’s concession and the DNC. They’re now hosting fundraising events, handing our car stickers, and sporting t-shirts bearing Obama’s face with his “Yes, We Can” slogan in Creole: “Wi, Nou Kapab.”

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