Latinos, Sanders's secret weapon in Nevada, could make him unstoppable on Super Tuesday

[Autumn]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/latinos-sanderss-secret-weapon-in-nevada-could-make-him-unstoppable-on-super-tuesday-015922411.html

LAS VEGAS — Bernie Sanders’s Nevada caucus campaign ended with a convincing win Saturday afternoon, thanks in large measure to a 37-percentage-point victory among Latino caucus-goers. But the seeds of that victory were sown five years ago when a staffer on Sanders’s first presidential bid had trouble reading a Spanish website.

Sanders was short on resources; his staff was a skeleton crew, with no one who could translate Spanish. So the campaign summoned Chuck Rocha, the founder and president of Solidarity Strategies, a consulting firm specializing in reaching Latinos and blacks that was launched by Rocha in 2010. He charged Sanders triple his usual rate to work on the holiday.
“I remember sending him an invoice for $824, which was a big invoice for me,” Rocha told Yahoo News in an extensive interview five days before the Nevada caucus. “Little did I know that that $800 invoice would turn into millions and millions of dollars of work for Bernie Sanders.

In the summer of 2015, Black Lives Matter protesters interrupted two Sanders events, claiming the candidate wasn’t paying enough attention to racial issues. Jeff Weaver, the 2016 campaign manager, hired Solidarity Strategies to ensure that the senator’s work was, as Rocha put it, “reflective of the larger diverse communities.” Soon Rocha was consulting on minority hiring, outreach and advertising for Sanders. By the end of the race he was in charge of all of the campaign’s print communications.

Now Rocha, a 51-year-old self-described “Mexican redneck” who campaigns wearing a cowboy hat and driving a rented pickup truck, has become a leader of Sanders’s 2020 operation. While he remains in charge of his firm, Rocha officially joined the campaign last year as a senior adviser with a broad purview that includes general strategy, hiring staff and overseeing print ads and merchandise. Rocha also crafts the campaign’s Spanish-language ads on television, radio and the internet. If anyone is responsible for the huge Latino outreach effort that has helped propel Sanders to the front of the Democratic pack, it’s Rocha.

Chuck Rocha

Link to tweet

[at140]

1. Say what you will about Sanders, he is a shrewd politician!

And he is lucky that his opposition is not that strong in 2020. We don't have a JFK, Bill Clinton, Obama, type running this year who were all over-flowing with charisma. Liz Warren has the most charisma but her voters have moved to Sanders.

[Jersey Devil]

2. Yes, but his comments on Castro and Nicaragua worry me

"I was very excited and impressed by the Cuban Revolution."

OK, these comments were a long time ago and made before anyone really knew how bad Castro would be, celebrating the fall of the terrible dictator Battista, maybe even before Castro visited NYC, declared himself a Communist and plucked chickens in his hotel room. I was a kid at the time and remember how everyone else seemed happy about the dictator being overthrown, but I wonder how the descendants of Cuban refugees in Florida (and maybe even places like NJ where there is a huge Cuban presence) will play out.

[Autumn]

3. Yes, of course they do.

This is Nevada

[Jersey Devil]

4. Huh?

I don't get your response. Please clarify if you don't mind.

What do Cuban or Nicaraguan refugees have to do with Nevada?

[Autumn]

5. The commie scare stuff might play well with the older Cubans in Florida but

it doesn't play with we Latinos. It's doesn't even play that well with younger Cubans anymore.

[Jersey Devil]

6. I guess we will find out in the Fla primary - nt

nt

[wyldwolf]

7. In four years, Latinos will either be saying 'President Sanders didn't deliver" OR...

... "we fell for his Pied Piper routine in four years ago and got another Trump term."

Of course, some of us will reminded once again that a president can't deliver with a hostile congress.

[Autumn]

8. Sorry. We don't give up that easy. In 4 years we will be wanting to give President Sanders

4 more years. He's what we know about Bernie that you don't get. He isn't going to come out and say "The bill I sign must contain a public option" once or twice and move on. He's going to keep on hammering for us. And we are going to be there with him. Remind us all you want. We will go on and get it done. As your Joy Reid said:

" We underestimated the rage of people working 3 jobs,"

She fucking got one right.

[wyldwolf]

9. bookmark this thread.

See you in 2024.

[Autumn]

10. I doubt you will. But good luck