Saturday, June 25, 2005

''Dean: Democrats must cultivate Hispanics''

"SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico Jun 24, 2005 — The Democratic Party is losing more and more Hispanic voters to the Republicans and must cultivate them if it is to win the 2008 presidential victory, Democratic Party leader Howard Dean told Latino officials on Friday.

More than 7 million Latinos of Central and South American, Mexican, and Puerto Rican descent voted in the 2004 presidential race.

But with each successive race, a higher percentage of the growing number of eligible Hispanics has voted for the Republican Party candidate. In 1996, there was a 51 percent gap between Sen. Robert Dole and President Bill Clinton, who won 72 percent of the Hispanic vote. In 2004, there gap narrowed to 20 percent between President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry, who won nearly 60 percent of Hispanic votes."-from the AP story tonight.

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