Hispanic voters have been key for Hillary Clinton over the past weeks; she got 63 percent of them on Super Tuesday. They even helped her do the seemingly impossible and capture the youth vote from Barack Obama in some states. And if she wants to do well in one of the states that the campaign is now apparently pinning its hopes upon, Texas, she'll certainly need to hold on to that demographic.
Clinton's support among Hispanics has seemed pretty solid, but the recent shake-up in her campaign has put some prominent Hispanics on edge. Patti Solis Doyle, Clinton's campaign manager, left that position over the weekend, and was replaced by longtime Clinton loyalist Maggie Williams. The campaign has played the move as mutual, a resignation rather than a firing, and Solis Doyle remains with the campaign in a different role, but in the political world high-level staffing moves are always resignations, and not everyone believes the official story. And because Solis Doyle is herself Hispanic, some of her fellow Hispanics are disturbed by the move.
The New York Post's Maggie Haberman has the story of one of those who has expressed concern. Steven Ybarra is a superdelegate from California, and he heads the Hispanic Caucus of the Democratic National Committee. Shortly after the Solis Doyle news broke, Ybarra began circulating an e-mail he'd written that read, in part,
Apparently loyalty is not a two way street.Latino Super Delegates like myself who are elected to represent the voice of the Latino Voter will have cause to pause. For those of you who have committed to someone other than Obama and Clinton.
And the Politico's Ben Smith has an e-mail from a Hispanic supporter of Obama's, Moses Mercado, who was also angered by the Solis Doyle move. In his e-mail, Mercado wrote,
I don't know patty or her work, but I think it is sh*** that she is the one that got fired and blamed for all the problems. (They are supposedly ahead with hispanics and women and so they fire the hispanic woman?)No one else screwed up?
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