Oct
10
(Marumushi.com)- http://newsmap.jp/#
Takes news headlines from around the world and color-codes them and sizes them, to reflect how much play each story are getting from each country. Great concept, to get an idea of what’s hot, in the news, in real time.
Oct
05
by 
Spot Us May 21, 2009
The following is a three part series funded by Spot.Us, written by Jackson West with editorial support from SFAppeal.com. The content is Creative Commons, but all three parties must be given attribution.
Social Media Meets Politics: Pols Chasing Publicity Find Web Waters Welcoming
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other popular sites for publishing online have become ubiquitous in the news media, if not in everyone’s actual day to day lives. Recently, public officials have successfully made it onto the bandwagon by adopting these tools in their campaigns, fundraising, volunteer recruitment and, of course, garnering publicity. But are these tools truly being used to connect directly to voters and their concerns, or are they just another way to campaign?
Barack Obama certainly made hay online, with plaudits, publicity and private contributions rolling in over the course of the campaign thanks to a popular Twitter stream, Facebook chatter, and a social network, MyBarackObama.com, powered by software from local company Six Apart. Yet once elected, the new media music died. His Twitter stream went silent for weeks, and only four updates have been made since election day.
Local politicians who are “tweeting,” or regularly posting messages to Twitter, include State Attorney General Jerry Brown, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, State Senator Leland Yee, State Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, and San Francisco Board of Supervisors Clerk Angela Calvillo, on the Board’s behalf. Befitting a brand new form of communication, they’re all using it differently. The one common thread is that they would presumably all be relatively easy to reach, especially by a constituent and member of the press.
Adriel Hampton works as an investigator for the San Francisco City Attorney’s office and has kicked off a congressional campaign for California’s tenth district. An avid user of Twitter personally, he maintains a profile on Facebook, and is an active participant in a social network called GovLoop, where public employees are exploring ways to better connect public service with private taxpayers. It was at his urging that the City Attorney’s office created an account on Twitter.
“We’re trying to be transparent and apolitical in a way that advances the public interest, the public’s right to know and builds public trust in the office,” Hampton said of the tone and impetus of discussion on the site. Certainly transparency and authenticity seem to be two benefits most often cited by proponents using these new communications tools in government.
Some of the decisions made San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and his large communications staff and coterie of campaign aides seem to belie those types of good intentions. Newsom recently used Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to officially announce his entry into California’s 2010 gubernatorial election, garnering much media coverage and a few donations in the process.
Newsom’s aides in City Hall and his campaign team have been using these and other online tools for some time, but his office is not known for embracing radical transparency. For instance, while Newsom’s account often features replies to other Twitter users, responding to questions from the press is another matter. Repeated emails to his press secretary Nathan Ballard went unanswered (as did an email to Newsom’s likely gubernatorial opponent Brown).
Maybe the emails got lost in the shuffle. So why not play along and get in touch using Twitter? Because asking questions publicly using the service’s reply feature has gotten reporters in hot water.
“We don’t ask the mayor questions on his Twitter feed,” said San Francisco Chronicle city desk editor Audrey Cooper. There’s no need, she argued. “A press office has a lot of different ways to communicate with the press.” And they probably won’t start any time soon, especially in the wake of San Francisco Bay Guardian reporter Steven T. Jones’ experience.
Having been blocked from accessing Newsom’s updates after he asked a question publicly, Jones was accused of “flaming” or harassing the mayor online, and declared the equivalent of a -DCohn1 5/3/09 2:05 AM “troll” by Ballard. Not that it came as a particular surprise to Jones. “We’ve literally had the office door shut in our face before,” he said of his paper’s relationship with the mayor’s communications team.
So tools like Twitter don’t necessarily level the playing field for access, but they do offer an opportunity to make an end run around tough questions from critics and appeal directly to potential supporters without having to go through traditional media channels.
Social Media Meets Politics: Technology Proves an Enabler for Ambitious Politicians
If Twitter isn’t necessarily a chance to engage directly with critics instead of issuing statements through the press, then what is it for? Newsom argued in a Geek Entertainment Television interview that “for people who want to offer honest criticism or counsel and advice, it’s very meaningful.” (See bottom of page for video).
Even activists like Jeremy Pollock with the League of Young Voters rely on online tools. For Pollock, Facebook has become “my default place for keeping tabs on political events and fundraisers,” even though the organization still focuses on providing printed voter guides and more traditional peer to peer political engagement.
And from a campaign standpoint, social media also offers significant opportunities for fund raising. The perceived authenticity of communication over social networks means that unlike traditional online advertising, “click throughs” for social media appeals and recommendations are much higher. And unlike buying ads on search engines like Google, not to mention television, newspaper, billboard or even bumper sticker ads, there is no direct cost.
More importantly, unlike offline advertising methods, online methods make it much easier for individuals to go from inspiration to donation. There are no checks to fill out or envelopes to stamp, briefcases full of cash to smuggle or hookers and blow to surreptitiously deliver — while outsider candidates using Paypal to collect contributions have run afoul of local election officials when public financing is sought, privately financed campaigns can use sites like ActBlue to offer the same transaction ease. And subscription donations, like those that netted the Barack Obama campaign so much cash, mean that over the course of a long election supporters on a budget can offer small contributions over time — which can amount to significant money by election day.
The benefit of this is that candidates don’t necessarily have to rely on large institutional donors, at least in theory. But congressional candidate Adriel Hampton only managed to turn 10 of his 2,800 Twitter followers into donors with an appeal shortly after announcing his candidacy. “Unless you really tap into Marko Moulitsas favorites, fundraising is still a phone call operation,” Hampton concluded from the experience.
Newsom has done better, netting a total of $566,995 through ActBlue. A fundraising drive featuring a barrage of Twitter and Facebook status updates on April 31st netted a new record of 282 donations in a single day. Altogether, appeals broadcast online via email, Facebook and Twitter with a link to the Gavin Newsom for Governor account on ActBlue grossed a total of $361,619.74 by the end of April.
With 1,382 donors, that amounts to an average donation of $262.37. But with 338,605 followers on Twitter and 46,955 supporters on Facebook, ActBlue can only claim a conversion rate of 0.3 percent so far — which doesn’t include any “viral” distribution, such as followers and supporters copying, pasting and otherwise relaying a donation appeal link on their own profiles and pages.
Meanwhile, a single day campaign event in Sacramento cost $100,000. And it wasn’t paid for by small donors, but by more traditional sources including AT&T, PG&E, unions and a lobbyists, if filtered through the state chapter of the College Democrats. In the last California gubernatorial election, over $130 million dollars was spent among all the candidates. The half million dollars raised online so far would amount to only one percent of $50 million dollars, which is the kind of money a Democratic primary nominee is likely to raise and spend in order to fight an independently wealthy Republican challenger like billionaire businesswoman Meg Whitman.
And Whitman’s not exactly a technophobe — she previously served as CEO of eBay.
The six-figure Sacramento party was aimed at young people, and for good reason. Newsom has made a point of contrasting his comparative youth against former governor and likely primary opponent, Attorney General Jerry Brown. Yet, while still the mayor of Oakland, it was Brown who was the first to blog — long before Newsom’s missives were featured on Daily Kos or the Huffington Post. Meanwhile, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has yet to formally throw his hat into the gubernatorial race, has already lobbed a cutting salvo over the bows of both the Newsom and Brown campaigns by declaring that as mayor of LA, he “is not going to Twitter while Rome burns.”
In his recent reelection campaign, Villaraigosa may have deduced that Twitter and Facebook are a great way to reach out to some voters, but not all voters — and certainly not key demographics in a statewide election. Speaking from his own experience organizing local constituents through the League of Young Voters, Jeremy Pollock noted that “the San Francisco Twitter culture seems a little older than the Facebook crowd and more of a techie type crowd than the political crowd.” (It should be noted that the Twitter account which the League of Young Voters maintains was another of those known to be blocked by the Newsom account).
Pollock pointed to a study by San Francisco’s YouthVote [PDF] that revealed Asian-American and “white” (caucasian) students at San Francisco schools were the most likely to use Facebook, while black and latino students were much more likely to use MySpace. Newsom and Villaraigosa both have MySpace profiles, though Newsom’s official Web site doesn’t link to it and neither candidates’ campaigns have updated their MySpace profiles since last year’s national and statewide elections (as of this writing, Newsom’s last login was April 21, three weeks ago). Brown has no obvious MySpace presence at all.
MySpace is owned by News Corp., which hasn’t exactly been friendly to the Democratic party machine. Newsom even caught flack over Twitter from his own cousin after a televised appearance on another News Corp. property, Fox News. But the lack of MySpace engagement signifies campaigns giving up on reaching out to marginal constituents. The choice of Twitter and Facebook over MySpace betrays any stated intent at radical inclusion, since choosing sides in the digital divide belies the crass algebra of class prejudice in online electioneering.
A certain class of constituents with the time to keep themselves interested and informed can now reach out to and interact with each other and their elected representatives as nominal peers, even anonymously (if careful). This surely opens up new avenues of both advocacy and dissent. “It does democratize information so that it’s not filtered by an editor of a newspaper,” said Newsom of Twitter and other online services in his GETV interview.
Does that mean statements presented directly by public officials online are more valuable to the public than excerpts, quotes and paraphrased details as part of a newspaper article or television report? Certainly, they’re invaluable as source documents for citizens, other officials, researchers and historians. But what of the emails, text messages and other private communications between government officials which aren’t published online — will Twitter and Facebook help “democratize” that information as well?
Social Media Meets Politics: Are Politicians Embracing Twitter for All the Wrong Reasons?
What few of these eager and ambitious men and women angling for higher office or their coteries of public and private aides have acknowledged are the real and current, or potential and future problems arising from new social media tools: ethical improprieties, interest conflicts and propaganda abuses are obvious consequences in theory and practice. Social networks and Web publishing make monitoring the majority’s public sentiment and mollifying it with a mouthful of rhetoric easier and more politically expedient than ever. “My job, and the job of all good journalists I think, is to put that message in context,” the Chronicle’s Audrey Cooper remarked when asked about statements and press releases issued by public officials.
Almost anybody who’s posted a significant quantity of text, photos or video online for an extended period of time has regretted at least one public revelation, and might have even deleted the embarrassing item from the public record (or at least used a Web site’s privacy tools to restrict access). Even then, deletions and access restrictions aren’t reliable, as search engines and other Web sites may keep copies which may remain publicly available, and motivated snoops can find ways around privacy barriers.
Elected officials are the very definition of public figures who’ve chosen to sacrifice their right to privacy. Obliged to serve the public openly and honestly, though constantly encountering opportunities for corruption through personal ambition and political gain, their choices between keeping private secrets or telling public truths (and lies) pits their individual interests against those of their constituents.
Shortly after the Cosco Busan freighter sprang a leak, spilling toxic fuel into San Francisco Bay, Mayor Newsom left on a planned vacation to Hawaii, assuring residents that he was in constant contact with local officials dealing with the environmental catastrophe. Yet after returning from his trip, Newsom refused to provide details of messages he sent or received while away — citing the use of a personal iPhone as reason enough deny access to records of any communication between himself and other public servants.
Presumably, the mayor updates his Twitter account from the same iPhone, or better yet, a newer model. But by using a personal device, he can not only avoid public disclosure statues by “co-mingles” both public and private business — also avoiding laws against using publicly funded facilities for political ends like soliciting donations and campaign support.
By the same logic, using privately owned Web sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, politicians can also ignore record keeping and public disclosure statutes while indulging in public business or personal promotion as they see fit. It allows the mayor to add “favorites” from his MayorGavinNewsom account to appear as thumbnails on his NewsomforCalifornia account, co-mingling purported city business with promotional efforts such as his campaign kickoff ad.
“The strategy of what they’re doing is have as little as possible go on their Web site,” explained online political strategy consultant Bob Brigham. Brigham is another Twitter user who was blocked from by Newsom’s account. “It was petty,” he said of the snub. Yet he defended the mayor’s use of the account for both personal publicity and public engagement.
“Some people would tell you there’s sketchy ethical issues, but I don’t believe [that to be the case],” he explained. For folks who ask simple, concise questions about city services, he felt the mayor was within his rights to answer as a sort of 311 operator by proxy. “Even though it is his personal account, with the way the world works, I think it makes sense if somebody asks ‘How do I get rid of my mattress?’ for him to point out large item disposal.” As an example, Brigham lauded California Secretary of State Deborah Bowen as “The best person in California politics of electeds on Twitter.”
Bowen’s Twitter stream is certainly personal, and the tone is certainly a familiar one for typical Twitter users. The updates on meeting schedules posted to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors account, with its strictly business mien, is tragically unendearing by comparison. But with Newsom, Brown and Villaraigosa, while it’s clear that the Twitter and Facebook updates serve their personal interest (namely, to woo voters in the hopes of getting elected), it’s not so clear that they are publishing updates themselves.
It’s not uncommon for celebrities and other busy people to hire someone as a ghost writer to manage their online media presence. Both Newsom and Villaraigosa occasionally make spelling or grammatical errors, which would be unlikely if written by an underling anxious about making a mistake. Yet Brown has help managing his LinkedIn account, some of Villaraigosa’s updates are signed DL by an aide named Daniel, and early updates on Newsom’s Twitter account were written in the third person.
The latter were probably handled by Deputy Communications Director Brian Purchia, who’s widely credited with maintaining Newsom’s Facebook profile and though working for the mayor’s office, describes himself as working in the “Online Media industry” on LinkedIn. And he probably has help in the form of interns who were solicited on Newsom’s Facebook profile. If not Purchia, certainly one of the nearly dozen staffers on the city payroll who work in the mayor’s office of communications are tracking activity and likely helping to keep all of Newsom’s accounts current.
So to some degree tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are being used to directly address voter questions and concerns, and also offer a little insight into the lives of our elected officials. But policies on disclosure and accreditation vary widely, and while it’s one way to reach a certain segment of constituents, many more are left out. And whatever public value it offers for conducting public business has generally proven minimal compared to the personal value for politicians chasing publicity, donor contributions and votes on election day.
Hat tip for a comment from Greg Dewar of N-Judah left on SF Appeal
Sep
07
(Excerpt from the White House main website)
Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009
The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.
I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.
I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.
Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”
So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.
Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.
Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.
Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.
And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.
And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.
You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.
Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.
I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.
So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.
But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.
Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.
That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.
Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.
I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.
And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.
Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.
That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.
Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.
But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?
Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
Link to the White House Page:
Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event
Sep
01
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has appointed more Hispanics to high office than any president ever has during the first year in office, reflecting the growing political clout of the nation’s largest minority group.
The 43 appointments since Inauguration Day
also reflect Obama’s debt to the Hispanic community, which helped propel him into the White House.
Obama won two-thirds of the Hispanic vote in the 2008 presidential race, according to an analysis of exit polls by the Pew Hispanic Center. He beat Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., overwhelmingly among Hispanic voters despite McCain’s generally moderate stance on immigration issues.
Brent Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said he believes Obama has made a conscious effort to hire Hispanics in part to keep a campaign promise.
“I think the president has been very intentional about it, and he’s delivered,” Wilkes said.
But the White House put a slightly different spin on it.
“The president has made it a priority that his administration reflect America’s great diversity,” said Adam Abrams, a White House spokesman. “But the most conscious effort has been to appoint the best and most qualified candidates for each position.”
The Senate has so far confirmed 43 Hispanics nominated by Obama to serve at top levels in his administration and in the federal government, including two Cabinet secretaries and the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor.
Those appointments represent 14 percent of the 304 Obama nominees the Senate has confirmed.
Hispanics make up 15 percent of the U.S. population and about 8 percent of the overall federal workforce, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Office of Personnel Management.
“Fourteen percent is certainly a high-water mark for any president, and it represents incredible progress at the White House,” Wilkes said.
Those 43 confirmed appointees don’t include the more than two dozen Hispanic staffers working in the White House who did not require Senate confirmation.
In eight months, Obama has far exceeded the number of Hispanics appointed by his two predecessors in their first 12 months in office, according to the White House. In his first year, President George W. Bush appointed 34. President Bill Clinton appointed 30 Hispanics in his first year.
“I am proud that this administration has appointed a significantly higher proportion of Latinos … than previous administrations,” Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, said in Puerto Rico this summer. “More importantly, while we have made the strongest start in history in this area, we also know that we have more opportunities in the coming months.”
Obama still has more than 200 appointments to make.
Even before taking office, Latino leaders lobbied Obama to appoint Hispanic Cabinet secretaries and to fill the first Supreme Court vacancy with a Latino.
Shortly after taking office, the president nominated three Hispanic Cabinet secretaries, choosing Solis, a California congresswoman, for Labor secretary; Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., for Interior secretary; and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson for Commerce secretary.
Richardson withdrew from consideration amid a federal grand jury probe involving his campaign donors and was replaced by former Washington Gov. Gary Locke, who is Asian-American.
But it was Obama’s nomination of Sotomayor that resonated most with the Hispanic community, Latino leaders say. Sotomayor, of Puerto Rican descent, was confirmed in early August.
“All appointments aren’t equal, and that’s the most important one a president can make,” Wilkes said. “It ensures that there will be a diverse viewpoint on the court for many years to come.”
by Erin Kelly
Republic Washington Bureau
Sep
01
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has appointed more Hispanics to high office than any president ever has during the first year in office, reflecting the growing political clout of the nation’s largest minority group.
The 43 appointments since Inauguration Day
also reflect Obama’s debt to the Hispanic community, which helped propel him into the White House.
Obama won two-thirds of the Hispanic vote in the 2008 presidential race, according to an analysis of exit polls by the Pew Hispanic Center. He beat Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., overwhelmingly among Hispanic voters despite McCain’s generally moderate stance on immigration issues.
Brent Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said he believes Obama has made a conscious effort to hire Hispanics in part to keep a campaign promise.
“I think the president has been very intentional about it, and he’s delivered,” Wilkes said.
But the White House put a slightly different spin on it.
“The president has made it a priority that his administration reflect America’s great diversity,” said Adam Abrams, a White House spokesman. “But the most conscious effort has been to appoint the best and most qualified candidates for each position.”
The Senate has so far confirmed 43 Hispanics nominated by Obama to serve at top levels in his administration and in the federal government, including two Cabinet secretaries and the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor.
Those appointments represent 14 percent of the 304 Obama nominees the Senate has confirmed.
Hispanics make up 15 percent of the U.S. population and about 8 percent of the overall federal workforce, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the Office of Personnel Management.
“Fourteen percent is certainly a high-water mark for any president, and it represents incredible progress at the White House,” Wilkes said.
Those 43 confirmed appointees don’t include the more than two dozen Hispanic staffers working in the White House who did not require Senate confirmation.
In eight months, Obama has far exceeded the number of Hispanics appointed by his two predecessors in their first 12 months in office, according to the White House. In his first year, President George W. Bush appointed 34. President Bill Clinton appointed 30 Hispanics in his first year.
“I am proud that this administration has appointed a significantly higher proportion of Latinos … than previous administrations,” Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, said in Puerto Rico this summer. “More importantly, while we have made the strongest start in history in this area, we also know that we have more opportunities in the coming months.”
Obama still has more than 200 appointments to make.
Even before taking office, Latino leaders lobbied Obama to appoint Hispanic Cabinet secretaries and to fill the first Supreme Court vacancy with a Latino.
Shortly after taking office, the president nominated three Hispanic Cabinet secretaries, choosing Solis, a California congresswoman, for Labor secretary; Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., for Interior secretary; and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson for Commerce secretary.
Richardson withdrew from consideration amid a federal grand jury probe involving his campaign donors and was replaced by former Washington Gov. Gary Locke, who is Asian-American.
But it was Obama’s nomination of Sotomayor that resonated most with the Hispanic community, Latino leaders say. Sotomayor, of Puerto Rican descent, was confirmed in early August.
“All appointments aren’t equal, and that’s the most important one a president can make,” Wilkes said. “It ensures that there will be a diverse viewpoint on the court for many years to come.”
by Erin Kelly
Republic Washington Bureau
