Our Firm's president, featured in ABC Spain and Europa Press
Cesar Martinez, our firm's leader, is quoted once more in Madrid's Europa press, as well as major
Spanish Newspaper ABC. In these interviews, Cesar discusses the importance of the immigrant vote in the upcoming local and statewide Spanish Elections in 2011. Europa press quotes Cesar:
"According to Martinez, political election expert, the parties that make a great effort to communicate with the immigrant voter from the very start of 2011, will be able to reap the benefits for sure. However, those that don't make this effort, run the risk of losing the vote of an entire generation.
XII ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN STRATEGY SEMINAR
The George Washington University (GWU) is pleased to present the 12th Election Campaign Strategy Seminar entitled "Keys to a Successful Campaign. Principles and Tools for Success".
The social and cultural diversity of our continent is manifested, among other things, in the ways and forms in which electoral processes and politics are developed in Latin America. Beyond the political and socio-economic particularities of each country, all successful electoral campaigns have a number of elements in common. In this seminar we will deal with just that: the keys to a successful campaign.
We will discuss, based on successful experiences throughout the region, how to establish an efficient and disciplined organization, how to raise funds adequately and according to the needs of a campaign, how to create a viable and realistic plan and strategy, how to develop a communications strategy according to the demands of the electorate, how to adapt to new trends and technologies, and finally, how to ensure that all these principles are effectively applied to achieve success.
The lectures will be given at our University Campus in Washington, DC from March 14-18, 2011.
Topics covered: Surveys and Research, Political Advertising and Marketing, Campaign Organization and Planning, Message Development, Targeting, Direct Contact, Campaign Management and Political Leadership, Low Budget Media Production, Volunteer Recruitment and Organizing, Grassroots Mobilization, Coalition Building, New Technologies, Election Strategy and more
Cases to analyze: Juan Manuel Santos in Colombia, Enrique Peña Nieto in the state of Mexico, Chris Christie in New Jersey, Marco Rubio in Florida and other Republican candidates in 2010, Obama in 2008, Sebastián Piñera in Chile and more.
The George Washington University is considered "the most prestigious university in the United States for political professionals" ("The hottest university in the nation for 'political junkies'", Newsweek Magazine 2005) and "the elite in political strategy learning" ("The West Point of the Political Wars", New York Times).
Our school, The Graduate School of Political Management (GSPM), as part of GWU, has joined forces with prestigious organizations worldwide and with consultants who are developing innovative projects, the same ones that will accompany us in this event.
A Mexican in the "gringo" election campaigns
CÉSAR MARTÍNEZ GOMÁRIZ DIRECTOR OF PUBLICITY FOR THE BUSH AND MCCAIN CAMPAIGNS
"Politics should not be left in the hands of politicians alone".
Do you like politics?
I don't belong to any party, but I like it. I feel it is important to participate. Politics should not be left to politicians alone, but people have to get involved. In the United States, you even vote for your school board members.
However, participation in elections is low, at least in Spain. Are citizens fed up with politicians?
It's democratic boredom. I suppose in Spain's first elections the turnout was massive. You have to remind people that it's very important that they vote. If you don't vote for someone, someone else is going to decide for you. I take my children with me when I go to vote. In the last U.S. election, my company worked for Senator McCain, but my children were more for Obama. In my house there were two signs, Obama and McCain. If people don't participate, democracy doesn't grow. And democracy is like health: if you don't take care of it, it starts to go.
These are projects that take months. The first thing is to research and determine the type of person you want to get to vote: how old they are, what their media consumption habits are, what language they use, and so on. Doesn't it seem impossible to connect an Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, English-speaking candidate with a Latino, Catholic, Spanish-speaking audience? Well, if you find similar values, it is possible.
He was a very disciplined candidate on message and connected well with the electorate. The 2000 election was very complicated because in the end it ended up being decided by the Supreme Court. The difference between Bush and his rivals was that he identified more with the ordinary citizen. In 2004, while Bush was seen working on his ranch, Senator John Kerry was more distant.
However, if there is currently a politician with a bad image or a bad memory, it is George Bush...
Internationally, perhaps, but not so much in the United States. Otherwise, he would not have been re-elected in 2004, when 3 million more people voted for him than his rival. Bush's image is not the most popular on the planet, but in the campaign it worked very well.
He managed to connect. The most important thing is to connect, to communicate and, possibly, to convince. You say vote for me, but if there's no connection, it's impossible to win. Kerry had no ability to connect. Obama had an excellent ability. McCain had it, but the positioning he was given as if he were Bush III had an influence.
Gigantic. But Obama came into office representing hope and, a year later, the situation is complex. He achieved great chemistry with the people and the defeat he just had in Massachusetts is the best thing that could have happened to him. It's a warning that he has to reconnect with the people. The voter is in charge.
I wouldn't call it guilt. We are communicators, not politicians. We don't have to agree completely with what the candidate thinks because, at the end of the day, what we are looking for is to communicate with the target audience. A candidate has four audiences before him: the base; the undecided; the indifferent, who are not interested in voting; and those who are against. We, the media consultants, are not hired to win our vote, but to win the vote of thousands of people. The one who votes is the one who knows and the one who rules, period.
How powerful is the Latino vote in the United States?
Latinos make up 15% of the population. We are the largest minority and, in some places, the majority. In Texas and California, for example, one out of every three citizens is Latino. In North Carolina, the Latino population growth has been 600%. What is happening to Latinos in the United States is what is going to happen to immigrants in Spain. It is no longer easy to move base voters, so the new voter, the first-time voter, is the one who may be easiest to persuade. The immigrant vote is going to be very important in Spain and, if a candidate is able to talk to them as Spaniards, as people who help the country to grow, he or she can be carried to victory.
On the other hand, all parties aspire to win the youth vote.
The vote of young people is the most difficult to motivate, the indifferent vote. They are not interested in politics and are much more interested in football or friends. But there are people who bet on youth and it works for them, as Obama did, who has to go back to that because now he is disconnected from youth.
César Martínez (Expert on immigrant voting in the USA): "Anyone who wants to blame immigrants for the problems of a country, an autonomous region or a city runs the risk of defeat".
The electoral expert Cesar Martinez, a specialist in Latino vote and adviser to the U.S. Republican Party in the campaigns of 2000, 2004 and 2008, warned Saturday that the immigrant vote will be "decisive" in many municipalities in the upcoming municipal elections to be held on May 22, 2011. For the first time, they will be able to vote.
In statements to Europa Press, Martinez has emphasized that the new voter does not have the "strong influences" that traditionally existed and that led him to have a "certain preconception". "In Spain there is an electorate very identified with each party, either by family tradition, because people are inclined by their ideology, etc., but the new voter can see the parties more independently," he warned. This is the new Spanish, or the son of immigrants who, although born in Spain, live very closely the experience of immigrants. For many it will be the first time they vote and, like everything new, they may be 'consumers' who are looking at the options before deciding. What is clear is that the immigrant vote will be decisive in many municipalities in the country," he added.
According to Martínez, a member of Mas Consulting, a Madrid-based firm, parties that "make a good effort to communicate with the immigrant vote since the beginning of 2011 will certainly reap rewards"; however, those who do not "will not only lose votes but run the risk of losing (a whole) generation".
Cesar Martinez: "Hispanics have once again decided who will be the president of the United States.
At 4 a.m. local time, César Martínez was leaving the Reagan Center in Washington, exhausted. He arrived at the finish line after having fought "vote by vote" and won for his boss, George W. Bush, the White House. With barely four hours of sleep, and after the polite congratulations, he said he was satisfied "and the most interesting thing about it is that we got 42 percent of the Latino vote when the most optimistic predictions were 40 percent. Dick Morrison, who was an adviser to Bill Clinton, has just acknowledged that one of the big factors in the change with respect to his forecasts was precisely the very high Hispanic vote that went to the president, going from 37 percent last time to this 42 percent, and that represents 7 points more that you get and that you take away from the opponent. That's where the big difference in the whole nation lies. On the 18th, Martinez will come to Spain to participate in the III International Seminar on Political Communication organized in Madrid by George Washington University and MAS Consulting Group.
In the end, the American dream that Bush promised in his ads when he made him say "in this land we find opportunity" won out again.
The Democratic Party's advertising often portrays Latinos as a minority in need, in need of government assistance, and poor people who need help with social programs. However, the messages we put out are ones of optimism. "You are the one who is helping to grow this country, you are the one who is helping to move the nation forward. That makes a difference, it makes the voter say, "You're recognizing that I'm working for America, that I came here looking for an opportunity and I'm making it. It's very different to be treated as a depressed minority than it is to be treated as heroes who are helping to make all this happen. That's a fundamental difference. Also, when I was looking this morning at what moved Latinos to vote one way or the other, I saw that it was family values first, then the economy, and then, far behind, other issues. Bush has won the five key states for Hispanics. How do you feel the strength of this minority in the U.S. today?
With their high turnout, Hispanics have shown their strength. Today, the African-American vote is 9 to 1 in favor of the Democrats, but the Latino vote is one out of two and that's why it can tip the balance. Hispanics are already in the decision-making power of this country. Nine percent of the total electorate was Latino, and that speaks of a growing force. One out of every five children born in this country is Latino. There are 188 votes in the states where there are more Latinos and it takes 260 to win, so it is evident the weight of the Hispanic, which is growing, and the Democrats have to realize that because you are Hispanic and a minority you don't vote Democrat, but they need to make a conscientious effort.
Republican Mel Martinez has also won the hotly contested Florida Senate seat, making him the first Cuban-American to reach the upper chamber. They're on a roll.
Ken Salazar also won in Colorado, and although he is a Democrat, he is Latino. It's evidence of how much Hispanic strength is growing. There are more Hispanics in the US than Canadians in Canada, their purchasing power is among the three highest in the Hispanic world if it were a nation. This movement no longer stops, the dream of Simon Bolivar, the Ibero-American unification, is happening in this country. The engine that helps this country grow is the Latino force, in all aspects, even in baseball! Watching the World Series you would hear "Pedro Martínez pitcher", "José Cortés"... the best baseball players are Ibero-American.
You told me two months ago that the reason people turn to Bush and not Kerry is because they know Bush and don't know Kerry. Does this attitude respond to the adage that the devil you know is better than the devil you know?
Latinos are more about talking about family first and how we're doing, and then talking about business. We like to get to know the people we're going to deal with, and that's something Bush has seen very well. Before, the Republican party was anti-immigrant, tougher, all in English, and Bush turned the tables. I remember when Governor Pit Willson's proposition 187 in California wanted to take away the rights of immigrants and then Governor Bush said, "If someone is suffering, going through misery and risking his life to feed his family, he deserves all our respect". And as you say, the best time to plant an olive tree is 25 years ago. It's not much use three little words now in Spanish from Kerry, but what Bush has been doing for the last ten years.
We have just seen, for the second time, that the widespread assumption that Bush is a simple man does not matter to Americans.
In the end, people decide which of the proposals will suit them best in their day-to-day lives. Of course they are concerned about foreign policy, about terrorism.... But also about what taxes are going to be, where family values are placed. Women voted a lot, and married women, according to statistics, voted more for the president, while some more single women voted for the senator. That will have to be analysed.
USA tu poder' or how to mobilize the Hispanic vote in the United States
Every electoral campaign has a maxim: the mobilization of the vote. But when the system demands a prerequisite such as voter registration, such mobilization becomes a common good.
In this context, campaigns like the one launched last Tuesday by the U.S. group Mi Familia Vota. USA Tu Poder aims to mobilize the U.S. Hispanic electorate in the face of the 'mid terms', the elections that will take place on November 6 and that will define the control of Congress, a third of the Senate, elect 36 governors and many other positions at both local and state level.
The goal is to promote Hispanic registration in their places of residence to achieve a greater weight of this population segment in the U.S. electoral process. According to Latino Decisions, 60% of U.S. Hispanics (57 million) were born in the country and another 20% have citizenship; that is, 35.6 million potential voters who will only be if they register in advance.
This is how Mi Familia Vota, whose work has resulted in the registration of 100,000 voters in the last six months, understands the commitment of Mi Familia Vota. USA Tu Poder defines itself as a non-partisan campaign that does not seek to guide the vote; on the contrary, it seeks to mobilize the voter, to empower him or her.
Mi Familia Vota has the support of renowned Hispanic figures, such as journalist María Elena Salinas and actress Diane Guerrero, as well as the strategic advice of César Martínez, founder of MAS Consulting, who has worked on five U.S. presidential campaigns.
"When it comes to mid-term elections, Hispanics lag behind other groups of American voters in terms of showing up to vote, something that has to change," explains Martínez, who emphasises the duty of Hispanics to assume their responsibility as citizens: "This is also our country and we have the responsibility as citizens to be active players in the electoral processes at all levels of government, from city councils to Congress, because in the end it all comes down to this: 'He who votes is the one who has the power, who rules'".
César Martínez, President of MAS Consulting USA, awarded with a Reed Award, the Oscars of political communication
César Martín, president of MAS Consulting USA, has been awarded a Reed Award in the "best Grassroots Organization" category for his radio, television and digital campaign for Mi Familia Vota in the 2018 U.S. elections. The campaign was designed and produced by César Martínez in collaboration with Andrea de Anda and Alejandra Félix of Ojiva Consultants.
The Mi Familia Vota movement has conducted a series of Hispanic outreach activities in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Texas, including voter workshops, voter registration drives and voter mobilization at all levels of government.
Specifically, the winning campaign in this edition of the Reed Awards was designed with the slogan "VoteNOTrumpadas" and was developed in both Spanish and English through television and radio ads. In addition, there were two digital campaigns starring journalist María Elena Salinas- "USA Tu Poder"-and actress Diane Guerrero, targeting millennial voters.
"The main message was to convince Hispanic voters that political power is in their votes, as long as they exercise that power," explained Cesar Martinez. As he noted, Mi Familia Vota launched an unprecedented campaign that resulted in the Hispanic vote increasing its influence in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and Texas.