La Opinion is the major Spanish-language weekly daily in Los Angeles.  And they’re talking about endorsing in the Democratic primary for the first time ever.  Obama has done well in Spanish media (like El Cucuy), and there’s enough to suggest that this could be the direction they’re leaning in:

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s differing tones on immigration policy are said to be key to the editorial board’s decision, which I’d guess bodes well for Obama. Clinton has earned more support from the Latino political class, and Bill Clinton’s administration was known for promoting Latino leadership. But in recent weeks Obama has reached out to grassroots immigrants-rights organizations, speaking about his record of using progressive economic politics to bring Chicago’s African American and Latino communities together.

I honestly don’t know what newspaper endorsements really do anymore (and the Los Angeles Times is still out, so a split between the two is possible), but if Obama were to get the La Opinion endorsement, it could move enough votes in Latino-heavy Congressional districts in Southern California to have a legitimate impact, due to the peculiar math of the delegate selection process.

Of the remaining 370 delegates that will be allocated by voters, 241 will be divided among the state’s 53 congressional districts and allocated to candidates based on the vote they receive.

But not all congressional districts are equal. Some will have as few as three delegates, some as many as six. The number depends on how heavily Democrats have turned out in the past.

In one peculiarity of the process, a candidate who wins by a big margin in one district could end up with fewer delegates than a candidate who wins by a narrow margin in another.

For example, in a district with four delegates, a candidate who wins 62% of the vote would get two delegates — so would a candidate who wins 38% of the vote.

Obama could keep close and basically split those high-turnout districts (and I’m guessing that the heavily Latino districts are among them) and try for a majority and a win in the 3-delegate districts.  They’re already thinking along those lines:

Mitchell Schwartz, California campaign director for Obama, said he has a map on his wall of the state’s 53 districts and has selected about 20 where he thinks the Illinois senator could pick up an extra delegate.

Schwartz said the campaign has “shifted resources in the field” to try to capitalize on the quirks in the rules. “It’s different from winner take all,” he said. “You can lose a state and still pick up a bunch of delegates.”

I’d love to see a list of delegates by district if anyone could dig that up.

UPDATE: OK, Bob was nice enough to respond to my bleg and dig up a delegate list.  The LA Times article is a little off.  There are only two districts with 3 delegates, CA-20 (Costa) and CA-47 (Loretta Sanchez).  Thanks so much for being such stalwart Democrats and getting people out to vote, you wonderful Bush Dogs!

The target should really be those districts with 5 delegates, as well as playing for a draw in the 4-delegate districts.  The heavily Latino SoCal districts run down this way:

CA-31 (Becerra): 4

CA-32 (Solis): 4

CA-34 (Roybal-Allard): 4

CA-38 (Napolitano): 4

CA-39 (Linda Sanchez): 4

Obama should be able to play for a draw there.  

The 5-delegate seats are all over the map (a lot in the SF Valley, where I’m guessing Clinton could be strong; Harman and Laura Richardson’s seats in the South Bay; CA-50 and CA-53 in the San Diego area, Maxine Waters’ and Diane Watson’s seats in South LA;  CA-23 and CA-24 in the Santa Barbara region; Sam Farr’s seat, CA-17, in Monterey; a smattering of seats in the Bay Area (Stark, Tauscher, Miller, Matsui, Honda), and even John Doolittle and Mike Thompson’s seats.

Very interesting.