Mini 'Telenovelas' Support Obama

WASHINGTON — Supporters of Sen. Barack Obama, who has had trouble attracting Latino voters, have embraced a traditional Hispanic form of entertainment to push their candidate — telenovelas.

The wildly popular dramatic soap operas — which dominate prime time on Spanish-language networks in the United States and Latin America — are a staple in many Hispanic households.

The pro-Obama videos, launched by the San Francisco-based political action committee Vote Hope, depict three different stories all involving the fictitious Ortiz family.

Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, a spokeswoman for Vote Hope, said that the telenovelas are part of an effort, dubbed "Tu Voz, Tu Voto," or "your voice, your vote," to reach Latinos who are not involved in the political process and are ignored my most campaigns.

"All of our work has really tried to connect with the culture," she said. "In the long term, politics has to connect more with culture or it's not going to be relevant to people."

The short telenovelas were first part of a voter mobilization effort in California in which people gave their cell phone number and other information in exchange for the video. But now, they are available on the Vote Hope Web site and on YouTube.com. The group has also advertised the videos on some Latino-oriented Web sites such as Univision.com. and used them "on the ground" as they go door-to-door to Hispanic households.

The first Obama mini-telenovela is about young Latinos who attend protest marches but don't vote. In the second, a young Hispanic woman reluctantly attends a small hip-hop rally for Obama and gets a call that her cousin — an excellent student in high school — has been ordered deported and taken to jail. She decides that voting for Obama could change the situation because he supports legislation, known as the DREAM Act, that would give young illegal immigrants a chance to become citizens if they attend college or join the military.

The third video deals with a subject not often addressed in the Latino community — the relationship between African-Americans and Hispanics. A young black worker painting a wall hears an Obama rally and tells the rally organizer — who is also black — that Hispanics are taking away jobs from African Americans.

The organizer tells the worker that Latinos "work hard and deserve an opportunity" and that blacks and Latinos share the same problems, such as lack of health care, poor schools and high rates of incarceration. At the end of the video, the black worker pins an Obama button on his shirt. The first video is in Spanish, with English subtitles. The other two are in reverse — in English with Spanish subtitles.

Carolina Acosta-Alzuru, a professor of media studies at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, said that telenovelas are an intrinsic part of Latino culture, especially among immigrants in the United States.

"They have grown up watching telenovelas and their parents watched telenovelas," she said.

Acosta-Alzuru said that the telenovela format has been used successfully in public health efforts in the United States, but not in a political campaign.

The Obama videos have some classic elements of telenovelas, including a multi-generational family narrative, Acosta-Alzuru said. But they lack the key element of the genre — a love story.

"I don't really know if this will make it for Barack Obama or not because, yes, people will find the story interesting, but maybe it really doesn't feel like a novela," she said.

Obama has struggled to gain Hispanic voters. In Nevada's Democratic caucuses last week, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York received 64 percent of Hispanic votes, according to entry polls. Obama received 26 percent of Hispanic caucus votes and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina received 8 percent. Latinos comprised 15 percent of caucus participants.

In addition, a Field Poll released this week shows Clinton has a 59 percent to 19 percent advantage over Obama among Latinos likely to vote in the California primary on Feb. 5. However, the poll also showed that 18 percent remain undecided. The margin of error is 5.2 percentage points.

Clinton has been endorsed by several high profile Hispanic politicians, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and organizations such as the United Farm Workers union.

Obama also has endorsements by prominent Latinos such as Maria Elena Durazo, leader of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, and Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who is a leader on immigration issues in Congress.

However, Gutierrez this week criticized Obama's outreach to Hispanic voters, saying in the Politico newspaper that the campaign has not followed his advice to knock on the doors of Latino voters who don't know Obama.

The number of Hispanics eligible to vote increased from about 14 million in 2000 to 17 million in 2006, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. However, voter turnout among Latinos has been traditionally low. In 2004, about 16 million Latinos were eligible to vote, but only 7.6 million cast ballots.

The Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California estimates that 9.3 million Hispanics will cast votes in the general election this year.

On the Web:

To view the Vote Hope telenovelas: www.votehope2008.com/novelas.php