The Justice Dept made them compromise by extending early voting through this past weekend since the election was to be held on today's holiday. It's about the only good thing the Justice Dept has done in recent memory.

Bonilla wins with at least 53-55%, but Carlos Uresti unseats him in 2008, being able to run a well-funded, competent operation (unlike Rodriguez) and ACTUALLY HAVE TIME TO CAMPAIGN. This campaign lasted just over 3 months, and just 1 month for the runoff. A real campaign in 2008 could do the trick.

Overwhelmingly Latino areas of the nation such as this can be won if new voter registration and engagement programs are raised above the level of vaporware.

I'll go ahead and make a comment on this having been involved in a registration/engagement effort in the Mid-Atlantic area. Here is an overview:

[1] Compilation of non-registered Hispanic contacts. I'm not going to mention how this was done for obvious reasons.

[2] Contact initiated; native Spanish speaker; by phone/in-person; conducted by volunteers, immigrant advocacy groups, etc.

[3] Inquiry as to status of elibility.

[4] Classification: a) eligible to register b) not-eligible to register c) near-term eligibility (green card holder).

[5] If a), engagement. If c), maintain for future registration.

The primary difficulty, in a nutshell, is that the prospect has no way of knowing that you're not an INS rep in disguise. The information is self-reported. One finds that contacts who accepted registration forms did not ultimately register. There is no way of differentiating whether this is due to civic disinterest or concealment of status. Similarly, projections for 2008 using c) is based on self-reporting.

The second difficulty is the overhead of the process -- Spanish language requirement, etc.

Third -- lack of attractive candidates/positions.

Overwhelmingly though, the greatest barrier is the cloud of suspicion surrounding inquiries as to status. After all, the federal govt, via RealID, is trying to turn state DMV employees into de facto immigration officers, so the suspicion is not entirely unwarranted.

Eh, I tried some of the field work myself. Between the curt rejections or the friendly bs, the success rate was abysmally low.

the date was set to give bonilla as much of an advantage as possible.

Why would this be anything but an incredibly low turnout election?  I just don't see it for Ciro.

a note on early voting.  yes, the GOP rocks out on early voting in special elections.  no doubt.  but they absolutely do not when it comes to normal elections.  we flogged them in early voting during the nov. 7 election period.

this all said, we are at a serious disadvantage in the specials because of MONEY.  these longer voting periods favor the side that can put more boots on the ground and more people on the phones.

BUT BUT BUT, the DCCC has been spending WAY more money on this election than the NRCC.  i can't put in links, so i won't bother, but people should check out the FEC's late independent expenditure reports.  there's nothing on there for the NRCC.  i don't know why, perhaps b/c the GOP is in debt up to their ears and can't pay it down right now.  (doubtful)  maybe because bonilla has enough money of his own while ciro doesn't (much more likely).  but one way or another it appears we're vastly outspending them in the homestretch of this race.  that could make the difference.  look at all those paid phones and mailers opposing bonilla.  and a 70K media buy.  bonilla has a handful of PACs helping him out.  (we have the mighty LaRouche PAC!)  but the DCCC money is overwhelming right now, unless there's something i'm missing.

i think this race is too close to call.  that's my call right now.

However, I do not know what percentage of the voting eligible population Latinos represent in the district, nor am I aware what percentage of registered voters they make up in this district. Both figures are probably significantly lower than 65.1%.

According to RedViewer,

H VAP: 61.2%
H+B VAP: 64.3%
REG % SPAN 54.2% (2004)

This is a very winnable district.  Now, make some calls.

We're doing, at least, better than expected.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/s tories/MYSA121106.01B.Castillo.2f27d22.h tml

Here in CA there are two main groups focusing on people of color/low income community registration efforts: PowerPAC.org and Mobilize the Immigrant Vote. They are just getting started and have a staggeringly huge task in front of them, but are most definitely not vaporware.

MIV is a loose coalition of 150 existing community groups that are turning toward structural change, voter registration and mobilization. PowerPAC is working on research, funding and training to support these groups and others.

My organization (California VoterConnect) is focused on giving all of these groups as much data support (access to our CA instance of the VAN and training around data processes and field) as we can. We got started late this cycle but had a pretty successful outing anyway in getting the kinks worked out, we are planning on doing a lot of long term, structural organizing in 2007.

The "vaporware" story missed all this and it's not suprising... this is exactly the kind of story corporate media is structurally incapable of grappling with. Most of it is quiet and behind the scenes and the numbers aren't there yet. But the flywheel is beginning to turn in CA at least.

i wanna add something about this low turnout thing.  OK, low turnout might indicate that low info voters didn't go to polls: bad for Dems.  it might also indicate a very depressed GOP base: bad for GOP.  i'm curious to see how it goes down, but i don't think even high info voters will be all that motivated.

Turnout will be tiny. When do polls close. LA 2 had about 60,000 votes. My guess is this puppy has 50,000.