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Lost in a Lack of Spin

Reporters just don't know what to do with themselves when politicians don't require dramatic amounts of spin to talk to Latinos.

That was the case today in a story by Edwin Garcia in the Mercury News about Phil's speech to the National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles.

But despite the scope of the convention -- deemed ``historical'' by organizers -- Angelides, a keynote speaker, largely stuck to his standard campaign speech but inserted the word ``Latino'' in key phrases.

``It's time to help hard-working middle-class families, like the millions of Latinos who make this state's economy strong,'' he told more than 600 people at the capacity-crowd dinner. ``We find families, millions of Latino families, working hard at one job, sometimes two, just to stay even.''

This is Phil's main message in the campaign. He talks about it everywhere he goes. Why shouldn't he also talk about it to this gathering of Latino leaders and activists? Perhaps Mr. Garcia is used to Phil's opponent and the Republicans, who must put heavy spin on any speech to people of color, if they show up to the gatherings at all. That's because where the Republicans want to take (and are taking) the state and the country does not work for Latinos or other people of color. Phil's opponent could never deliver his standard stump speech to the Congreso -- he would be promptly booed off the stage.

Mr. Garcia has clearly heard Phil's speech more than a few times, by nature of his job, but that does not give him the right to just belittle it. Rather than check whether his annoyance was reflected in any of the people in the audience at the event, he just felt free to put his own personal bias right into the story. It happens all the time, every day, in the mainstream media. But that does not make it OK, and that is why we have to be diligent on the blogs to watch this coverage and to call it out when it's not fair.

I think it's pretty amazing these days that Phil can be perfectly honest about what he wants to do for California, and that message works for Latino as well as non-Latino audiences. We are one state, after all.

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