Presidential Candidates Continue Voting Block Courtship

The latest in a series of Presidential debates and forums took place last night in Coral Gables, Florida, with the first-ever Spanish language confab which attracted the majority of the Democratic White House hopefuls. The forum, sponsored by Univision and moderated by Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas, almost certainly provided politicos with a welcome distraction to Britney's so-called comeback train wreck at MTV's Video Music Awards in Las Vegas. The mere fact the moderators posed the questions in Spanish clearly indicates the growing influence Latino voters have during election cycles. It also highlights the lengths the Democrats will go to appeal to a wide range of so-called special interest groups for the sole purpose of securing votes.

The so-called pink vote remains a viable voting block [and lucrative source of campaign funds] in cities across the country. Last month's forum in Los Angeles clearly demonstrated the growing influence of LGBT voters within some political circles. The argument remains, however, these candidates will construct the right messages and use the correct sound bites to further attract pink supporters at the expense of specific answers as to why the majority of them fail to support marriage for same-sex couples and other issues important to many LGBT voters in this country. The nuances of politics remain many in the realm of a Presidential campaign. Voters, however, should arguably demand specific answers from candidates who seek their money and most importantly seek their vote. Spanish-language and LGBT specific forums score good PR points with those constituencies to which the candidates seek to reach out. One can conclude these constituents deserve more than simply prepackaged sound bites, photo-ops and rhetoric about the issues of the day.