Will the racial tensions between African Americans and Hispanics hurt Obama?

Anyone who lives around Los Angeles must be aware of the rise of racial tension between African Americans and Hispanics in the area. While most of the recent tension stems from gang wars between the different group, do you think it could hurt Obama's chances in California? I am sure that many of those who are making trouble will not be voting, but it does likely creates negative perceptions for each group in the eyes of the other.

I am a big Obama supporter, but I think this could hurt him in California. I'm not sure if it would be enough to cost him the primary, but it could be a key factor in a close race.

Any others with any opinion on this?

Can't lose what you never had....

In a poll from the Pew Hispanic Center released earlier this month, Clinton led among Latino Democrats with 59 percent, compared to 15 percent for Obama and four percent for John Edwards. In polls taken last week in California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas by ImpreMedia, the largest Hispanic news company in the United States, Clinton led Obama by an astounding average of 55 to six percent among Hispanic Democrats. Edwards got only 1.8 percent. Of course, even with this kind of support from Hispanics, Clinton could still lose those primaries, but it certainly gives her an edge.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=314e8fae-3fd3-4af2-bfde-f0f8e069c1fe

Obama is a fresh face to most who don't follow politics much. He's just now becoming someone people know.

there is tension between blacks and hispanics.

No point in worrying about what or who other people are going to vote for anyway.

This seems like a balanced opinion.

I also have no doubt that he could win many (if not most) of them over if they had the chance to get to know him. I've seen some bad numbers on how the Hispanic vote skews toward Clinton against Obama, but a lot of that is because he is unknown, both personally and politically, as opposed to, say, Illinois where they know him well.

I'm sure he'll be working the Hispanic vote hard in California in the coming weeks and he'll ultimately do well with them. I would suspect that Clinton still has an edge at the end of the day, but by much narrower margins than at present.

It specifically says;

But there may be another factor in Clinton's success among Latinos, particularly with regard to Obama. And it may have less to do with enthusiasm for her candidacy than with a lack of enthusiasm for the Illinois senator. Over the last two decades, there has been evidence of growing hostility from Hispanics toward African Americans. Some of this hostility is the result of conflicts, or perceived conflicts, over politically controlled resources in cities and states. But as Tanya K. Hernandez, a professor of law at George Washington, has argued recently, it may also be a legacy of an older Latin American prejudice against blacks that has been transplanted to this country.

While this conflict passes largely unnoticed in the popular press, African American and Latino sociologists have been conducting extensive surveys in Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and Philadelphia. These surveys have generally found that Latinos display more prejudice toward African Americans than African Americans do toward Latinos or than whites display toward African Americans. In the words of University of Houston sociologist Tatcho Mindiola, Jr. and two associates, "in general African Americans have more positive views of Hispanics than vice versa."

and how does any of that conflict with what I said?

If I have to explain everything, it's annoying. I get it, and I'm sure others will too. Those who aren't wearing rose colored glasses, that is.

As the lone Hispanic in the race, Mr. Richardson was expected to draw support from sizable Latino populations in the coming primaries in Nevada and California.

His withdrawal could swing those voters to Mr. Obama, who had a strong Hispanic following in Iowa, or to Mrs. Clinton, whose campaign is making an equally vigorous outreach effort.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/us/politics/10richardson.html?ref=politics

they only broke it down in 3 groups, black, white, and other. He did ok with all of the groups. He didn't completely run away with it. But there's only 3.8% of the population in Iowa who are Hispanic. So, in the entire state, there are only about 87,000 Hispanics. But obviously, they all didn't vote. 'Others' would also include;

American Indian and Alaska Native persons, percent, 2006 (a) 0.4% 1.0%
Asian persons, percent, 2006 (a) 1.6% 4.4%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, percent, 2006 (a) Z 0.2%
Persons reporting two or more races, percent, 2006 1.0%
Foreign born persons, percent, 2000 3.1%

Guess we'll have to wait and see.

"In New York, after the rally, Figueroa wasn't hanging with the media, he was hanging with the field workers. "We don't train volunteers. We train organizers," he told me. The son of farm worker organizers (and a former top politico at AFSCME) Figueroa knows the difference between a volunteer -- who does what s/he's told -- and an organizer who's a decision-maker in his/her community. At Camp Obama, the campaign's twice-weekly training sessions in Chicago, participants train with Figueroa's mentors -- men like Harvard Professor Marshall Ganz, once a United Farm Workers organizing director -- and with the people who trained Obama – mentees of grassroots organizer Saul Alinsky."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?pid=238867

I'm not worried about it.

don't give it a second thought....

They're pretty reliable Democratic voters in the general election. Whoever wins the party nomination can count on California Hispanic support. Hispanics have traditionally turned out at very low numbers for primary elections, however, so feelings about the individual Democratic candidates might not be very strong, regardless of who the candidates are, and won't matter much in the overall primary vote tally, anyways.

she will take the latino vote overall but the younger ones seem to be more for Obama. if Obama can get a good turnout of younger voters it should help.

C'mon. I live in NJ. Blacks and hispanics get along just fine. So do blacks and Jews.

If it is all about shit-stirring... we can all play this game

He raised the question of Hillary benefiting from tension between Hispanics and African Americans...

But Hillary gets blamed for shit stirring....

Truth is a precious commodity here...