Talk About $5M Short and 18 Months Late, Pero Whoopie, ¿Qué no?

Associated Press reports that the Democratic National Committee will spend $1 million on “television, radio and online ads to motivate key members of their party’s coalition (Hispanarian potential voters who are infuriated after heavily supporting Democrats and being blown off since November 2008).

Let’s get a few things straight: First, Latino voters are not targeted by translating ads and campaign material into Spanish. In fact, many young Latino voters don’t even speak or read it well. Secondly, their lack of enthusiasm isn’t solely about the failed efforts to fix immigration law.

What a lot of it is about is being taken for granted.

A friend, an important Democratic Party official in a South Texas county that was once a Democratic stronghold and may turn to the GOP soon, remarked, “It’s like we’re the girl who doesn’t get asked out until the guys have been turned down by all the other girls; yeah, if none of them work out, I can always call her and she’ll go with me.”

I’ll be the last to pull a stunt like telling people not to vote, but until national and state Democratic party big-shots pay more attention to what has become their actual base — young, hip and minority voters — and come to terms with the reality that the old labor establishment and the progressive farmers and ranchers of East and West Texas are mostly dead, they aren’t going to get enthusiastic support.

Bypassing party big-shots — and embracing issues that make party officials nervous — is exactly how Obama beat all his party’s contenders, including the presumed shoo-in, Hillary, and how he trounced McCain.

It’s a different game.