News (Noticias) Tagged ‘Federico Peña’

He stated that while top Latino leaders such as New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, former Clinton Transportation Secretary Federico Peña and U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., have direct access to Obama, “that is very different than BEING in the inner circle of the Obama campaign.”

”My experience with how the Obama campaign handled the delegate vote on June 1 in Puerto Rico was disastrous,” Ferre wrote. “The principal decision makers, operatives and advertisements were all made in or through Chicago. The result is that [Sen. Hillary] Clinton got almost 70 percent of the vote in Puerto Rico.””*

Federico Peña (wikipedia), former transportation secretary and Denver mayor, is now leading Barack Obama’s nationwide Latino outreach strategy.

Already Obama’s national campaign co-chairman, Peña is taking on the additional role to help familiarize Latino voters with the Illinois senator. Hillary Clinton, who dropped out of the presidential race earlier this month, received the bulk of Latino support during the primary season. “*

Federico Pena says he “saw a lot of myself” in the outsider presidential candidacy of a young Democratic senator from Illinois.

“When I ran for mayor in 1982, I was very young (36), a party outsider. People said that I couldn’t win…because, as a friend told me, ‘Denver’s not ready for a Hispanic mayor,’” says Pena, now co-chair of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Pundits, he notes, said the same about an African-American hopeful. As a result, “I really understand personally what he’s going through,” Pena says.”*

“The audience stood in unison as former Denver Mayor Federico Peña made his triumphant entrance at the local public library.

Both people, that is.

Peña shook a couple of hands, made some small talk and then got down to business telling the “crowd” why Sen. Barack Obama is his choice for president.

“I asked myself, who has the best skill set, the natural ability to bring people together,” Peña said. “You don’t teach somebody to be a unifier. “”*