Latina to head Obama's national political director post

From aide to former Denver Mayor Federico Peña to now the first Latina to hold the post of National Political Director for a presidential reelection campaign.

Katherine Archuleta

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's re-election team has chosen Katherine Archuleta of Denver to be his national political director, becoming the first Latina to hold that position. The Denver, Colorado native's selection is key toward winning Colorado in the 2012 Presidential race.

Archuleta is currently the chief of staff to Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis, but brings year's of experience issue knowledge to Obama's campaign. Some of here previous posts include: aide for Mayor Federico Pena, the only, Latino mayor of Denver; senior advisor to former Mayor John Hickenlooper, Denver's lead city planner for the 2008 Democratic National Convention; and, executive director for the National Hispanic Cultural Center Foundation.

"Her understanding of the issues of the West are important," Interior Secretary and fellow Coloradan Ken Salazar told the Denver Post. "And, the understanding in the Latino community is important as well."

Political experts believe Colorado will be the key state to win the White House in 2012, with Karl Rove overheard stating "as goes Colorado, so goes the nation."

Archuleta has a B.A. in Education at Metropolitan State College of Denver and her Master of Education at the University of Northern Colorado. She will be joining Obama's Chicago-based campaign team, which includes campaign manager Jim Messina, who earlier this year stepped down as deputy White House chief of staff, and David Axelrod, who stepped down as White House senior adviser to reprise his role as chief strategist and top political adviser. 

 

New billboard focuses on Latina abortions

New billboard ads by a conservative Latino group focuses on how abortion supporters target Hispanics.
by Steven Ertelt | Los Angeles, CA | LifeNews.com

 
LOS ANGELES, CA -- Billboards across the nation have focused on how abortions and the abortion industry target black Americans and new a new billboard campaign in Los Angeles will show how abortion hurts the Latino community.

Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, talked with the Daily Caller about the new campaign to feature a jumbo billboard in Los Angeles.

“It’s clear that Latinos are being targeted by organizations that promote abortion like Planned Parenthood,” he said. “Many of their clinics are in Latino neighborhoods and communities.”

Aguilar has said, “Twenty-two percent of abortions in the U.S., for example, are performed on Hispanic women, and they are 2.7 times more likely to have an abortion than non-Hispanic white women. Motivated by their warped eugenic views, Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers are clearly going after racial and ethnic minorities in the country.”

The new billboard will read, in Spanish and English, “El lugar mas peligroso para un Latino es el vientre de su madre/The most dangerous place for a Latino is in the womb.” the Daily caller indicates the ads are part of a kickoff for a Sunday event called “Unidos por la Vida” (United for Life) at the LA Sports Arena sponsored by the pro-life group Manto de Guadalupe. The event features Governor Rick Perry of Texas and pro-life activist Lila Rose of Live Action Films.

The group was founded by Eduardo Verástegui, a famous Latin American actor and singer who became well known to the pro-life community in the United States via the feature film Bella. Earlier this year, he announced plans to build the largest pregnancy center in the United States in Los Angeles to reach out to Hispanic and other women.

A new study reported in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology and published by the Guttmacher Institute, shows the billboards are correct. The study found the abortion rate among Hispanic women at 28.7 per 1,000 women — more than twice as high as the abortion rate for white women, at 11.5.

Susan Cohen, also of Guttmacher, adds: “This much is true: In the United States, the abortion rate for black women is almost five times that for white women. Black women are not alone in having disproportionately high unintended pregnancy and abortion rates. The abortion rate among Hispanic women, for example, although not as high as the rate among black women, is double the rate among whites.”

Meanwhile, the CDC indicates Hispanic women account for 22.1 percent of all abortions in the Untied States even though the percentage of women in the United States who are Hispanic is less than that.

The Associated Press and Univision teamed up for a poll of 1,500 Hispanics conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago that found only 39 percent of Hispanics support legalized abortion.