I'm not a very good writer. I'll try my best to get my point across.

I was born and raised in Puerto Rico and have lived 12 years now in New York City. I've been on the island because of work for 2 months now. I am speaking as 1 Puertorrican. I don't pretend to speak for an entire island. That being said, I do have insight on what's happening on the ground and how the primary is shaping up.

Turnout is expected to be low. The polling places were cut in half because of lack of volunteers and enthusiasm. This is not good news for the Clinton, obviously.
That being said, things are close but I expect Hillary to prevail by a small margin.

Link to local newspapers :

http://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias

http://www.primerahora.com/home

http://vocero.com/

For those interested their is a great diary over at DailyKos:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/24/ 104947/076/361/521370

It's from an Obama supporter but it provides good info on both candidates.

Now to the purpose of this diary.

Hillary misspoke yet again in an interview with a local station yesterday. I was going to write a diary from my point of view and Hillary's blunder in her interview yesterday in Puerto Rico but I found that Obama for PR over at Daily Kos explained it better than I ever could.

Quote :

Yesterday, the second part of the interview Hillary gave to a local station aired. She was grilled by the reporters on her husband's actions towards Puerto Rico manufacturing during the 90's.  US companies that established here had tax-exempt status and could repatriate their earnings to the mainland without paying federal taxes, under Sec. 936 of the US Tax Code.  Sec. 936 had always been a major roadblock to statehood, because if PR were to be admitted as the 51st state, the other 50 states would not allow us to have that competitive advantage.  So in the 90's, our pro statehood Governor and his pro-statehood delegate in Congress mounted a huge campaign in Congress and the White House to have the 936 eliminated. And they succeeded.  When asked about it, Hillary says it was not her husband, but the Republican Congress that eliminated 936.  False.  The budget submitted by the WH did not contain Sec. 936, it was dead before it even made it to the Hill.  The net result: We have lost over 40,000 manufacturing jobs in the last 10 years (much like Ohio, Michigan, and other manufacturing powerhouses).

End of quote.

This is a very hot button issue in Puerto Rico. Many people lost jobs when Sec.936 was scratched. I know Hillary is not Bill but the fact that she would lie and say it was the Republican Congress who eliminated 936 is a joke. Everybody knows it was President Clinton. This is not helping her cause on the island.

Hillary knows her husband and one of her biggest supporters on the island (ex-Governor Rossello) were responsible for the death of 936. I have no idea why she didn't just distance herself from Bill (like CAFTA) and instead lied about how things went down. Puertorricans are not naive and can see  straight through the spin. This strengthens her position with the PNP (pro-statehood) group but completly negates any chance she has at getting votes from the PPD (pro-commonwealth).

The island is split almost 50/50 in support of either party.

(Obama has support from both parties)

Hillary should just come clean and admit it was a mistake by her husband's administration. She is going to be on the island until Monday so I expect her to clear this up. I am just surprised she would make such an obvious mistake in her first interview with the local press.

Video from the interview : http://www.wapa.tv/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8508&Itemid=57&videonews=1

There's more...

With all the media hubbub surrounding Senator Clinton's 1996 Bosnia trip, you'd think the woman had never been to Bosnia, or that she just took a trip to the beach and worked on her tan with her daughter.

There have been accusations that she has lied about her trip. Some pundits are claiming it calls her credibility into question.

Let's just get one thing straight, right here, and now - there is a huge difference between lying and misspeaking.  I'll even go further, because there are some who hear everything Senator Clinton says under the veil of suspicion and believe her capable of calculating every single word she ever utters and incapable of "misspeaking," and I will call her misspeak an exaggeration.  I chose to call it an exaggeration, because similar to a lie, they both require a purposeful action - they are not accidents. But that is where the similarity ends.

An exaggeration, has a foundation of truth. To exaggerate means to represent as greater than is actually the case, or to overstate. A lie on the other hand, has absolutely no ounce of truth. A lie is a false statement deliberately presented as being true. To lie means to present false information with the intent of deceiving.
One can say she exaggerated the dangerousness of the trip, but one cannot say she lied and said the trip was dangerous. There were snipers. It was a potential war zone. It was dangerous. It was not a lie, it was an exaggeration.

There's more...