Posted on evening of Sept. 20 for publication Sept. 21.

Campaign strategists on both sides of the Democratic-Republican divide fret daily about how big the HispanicLatino vote might be and how high a margin among HispanicLatinos President Barack Obama will rack up in November.  Most polls have him attracting 65 percent of the HispanicLatino vote and some surveys have him bumping 70 percent.  Anything more than 70 percent will trigger an electoral vote rout.

Obama did little to hurt himself when he confronted Jorge Ramos and María Elena Salinas last night on Univision the day after Mitt Romney faced the same journalistic duo.  Obama went to Miami knowing he had to face tough questions from Ramos who is unyielding in his criticism of the administration’s failure to bring about immigration reform – a public commitment made on national television by the Democratic nominee in 2008.  And, the same network reminds us often, Obama’s administration has deported more immigrants than any other in history.  Indeed, Salinas followed up with a question that made the very point.

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The forum that Jorge Ramos and María Elena Salinas of Univision hosted last night in Miami featuring Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was one of those non-events that should have been more than what it became.  The proposition that Romney had something meaningful to say to a national HispanicLatino population – that the polls suggest has made up its mind in this election, almost to the point of steadfastness – never reached professional seriousness.  Anyone viewing the event might have thought that Romney has hidden but burning support in HispanicLatino precincts across an entire nation when in fact it seemed the audience for last night’s peculiar program came from one precinct off old Southwest 8^th Street in Miami.  And Miami does not the national HispanicLatino population make — by a long shot.

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