Alex Sink lost the Florida Governorship by a few miserable votes, she avoided Latinos like the plague. Like Rich people that avoid the Poor Relatives !
Democratic Party Officials in Florida ignore Latinos. Their operatives do not pay enough attention to Latinos, do not recruit Latino Officials or Candidates, do not fight against Redistricting that dilutes and kills Latino Influence in Florida, etc ...
Last year, Latina Amy Mercado, a manager for the National Mango Board, ran a $64,000 maiden campaign against the powerful Florida House speaker, a Republican. With less than $2,000 in cash and $5,000 worth of in-kind contributions from the party, she won 40 percent of the vote.
Huffington Post
Florida Democrats Struggle To Connect With Latino Voters, Elect Hispanic Leaders
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ
July 5, 2011
Florida Democrats Struggle To Connect With Latino Voters, Elect Hispanic Leaders
Some excerpts :
Florida Hispanics, like Latinos nationwide, provided overwhelming support in 2008 for Obama thanks to a national get-out-the-vote effort. Since December of that year, 73,000 have registered in the state as Democrats and another 76,000 have registered while declaring no party. There have been 31,000 new Hispanic Republicans.
The growth in Democratic voters has come in part from younger, more progressive Cuban Americans and a wave of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos.
But that didn't help Florida Democrats in last year's election, as turnout of their Hispanic members dropped sharply – even more than among other Democratic voters – according to party leaders. It was one reason why the Democrats lost races for governor and U.S. Senate as well as other statewide contests.
For Democratic Hispanic Caucus leader Jose Fernandez in Orlando, that drop came as no surprise. The Army veteran recalled how Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink bought few Spanish-language ads and toured a local Puerto Rican community center only weeks before the election, when narrowly lost.
"People still thought she was a man with a name like Alex," he said. "We don't work like that. We have to see people, hear them."
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But Hispanics in Florida are somewhat of an anomaly. Cubans, who make up the majority, are generally allowed to stay in the country as soon as they touch U.S. soil, and Puerto Ricans are already citizens. Among the state's growing South and Central American communities, many have yet to be naturalized.
Patrick Manteiga, publisher of a trilingual Tampa newspaper (Spanish, English and Italian), said the party needs to reach out to new leaders like those at the region's thriving Hispanic churches, many of them evangelical.
"The pastors may be conservative Republicans, but there are many Democrats among their congregants," he said.
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"Where we have been failing, is that we have not been attracting the younger voters," said Garcia, a retired fire chief who is being courted to run for Congress against embattled South Florida Republican David Rivera.
Arceneaux blames the lack of elected Hispanic Democrats on districts created a decade ago by the Republican-controlled Legislature following the 2000 Census. But as the state gears up again for redistricting, local Democrats have missed key opportunities.
In Orange County, many Puerto Ricans were angered when officials failed to appoint any to a redistricting committee even though they make up a third of the county. Local Democrats were slow to react to the flap, even though Puerto Ricans tend to support them.
Similarly, in neighboring Hillsborough County, it took a New York-based Latino civil rights group from New York to help propose a county commission redistricting map that accurately reflected Hispanic growth. The mostly Republican commission nixed that map during a recent hearing. Local Democratic leaders were largely absent, attending their monthly meeting.
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Amy Mercado, chair of the Orange County Democrats, said she wants to see people in office like herself "who may be Hispanic, who are married and have to juggle and still do it all."
But she added: "They're not going to field a candidate just because it has a Hispanic name. I'm a Hispanic, Latina, but I'm a Democratic Latina. I'd rather have someone who's really going to push Democratic ideals than just have someone whose Hispanic or Latina."
She said the party is beginning to recognize people like herself, but that Hispanic Democrats also need to demonstrate they can act independently.
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