Hispanic voters in New York and specially in California may hold the key to Tsunami Tuesday.

Obama is doing something very smart about it (advertising in Spanish radio and TV) and he is enjoying from the support of perhaps the greatest organizer of Hispanic voters in California, I am talking by El Cucuy de la Mañana, The Bogeyman of the Morning.

Take a look at the front page of ElCucuy.com today (El Cucuy in the red vest);

The key is this audio of the telephone interview of Barack Obama by El Cucuy broadcast late last year and available front this link below Obama’s photo on the front page.

Towards the very end responding to Obama’s invitation to meet next time he went to Illinois El Cucuy says;

Ojala nos veamos en la Casa Blanca.  

or

I hope we meet at the White House

First of all, if you Recommend this diary, the audio of the wonderful and very informative interview will get a broader audience.  Trust me, as a Hispanic supporter of Obama I think that the more Hispanics get exposed to it the better.  The woman that does the real time translation does a great job even if she is not perfect.  

I think this may be more a case of El Cucuy approaching Obama more than Obama’s campaign doing an outreach, but it its clear who El Cucuy supports.

El Cucuy was one of the key forces behind the massive May 1st 2006 demonstration in Los Angeles.

The demonstrations were co-opted by LA Mayor Pedro Villaraigosa who spoke to the huge crowd that marched down peacefully from downtown to the Fairfax district.

I diaried about this historic event which I attended.

Antonio Villaraigosa supports Hillary Clinton, but he may not necessarily be as effective in turning out the California Hispanic vote as her campaign wishes.

But there are more points of reference that indicate a pattern of key Hispanic vote influencers actively supporting Obama.

On Monday in the LA Times OpEd, Gregory Rodriguez thoroughly debunks the notion that Hispanics will not vote for black candidates;

He could have also added that longtime Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley won a healthy chunk of the Latino vote in 1973 and then the clear majority in his mayoral reelection campaigns of 1977, 1981, 1985 and 1989.

Here in L.A., all three black members of Congress represent heavily Latino districts and ultimately couldn’t survive without significant Latino support. Five other black House members represent districts that are more than 25% Latino — including New York’s Charles Rangel and Texan Al Green — and are also heavily dependent on Latino voters.

So, given all this evidence, why did this notion get repeated so nonchalantly? For one, despite the focus on demographic changes in America, journalists’ ignorance of the aspirations of Latino America is pretty remarkable. They just don’t know much about the biggest minority in the nation. And two, no Latino organizations function in the way that, say, the Anti-Defamation League does for Jewish Americans. In other words, you can pretty much say whatever you want about Latinos without suffering any political repercussions.

If I were David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, I would spend a hearty amount of ad dollars in Spanish TV, newspapers and radio in Los Angeles and New York in the days.  

Level with Hispanics, what he said in the interview about education, health care and immigration is what they want to hear from Obama.  Specially in those radio stations that cater to young Hispanics, who, like young people of any ethnicity see in Obama someone closer to their way of thinking.

Those who have proclaimed that Hispanics will not vote for black politicians are making as big a blunder as President Bill Clinton made when he proclaimed that blacks in South Carolina would vote based on race.