Circling (or climing over?) the fence yet gain

Inspired by a anonymous comment by an anonymous reader (yay, there's one!), I want to post excerpts of the article titled "Dem Latino Vote Is No One's Big Enchilada" in the hopes that it will create some meat on which to chew and dialog.

Analysis of Latino voting patterns indicates that Latinos did not, as predicted, march monolithically into the voting booths to vote according to the candidate's skin color. Instead, the Latino vote segmented along other vectors, the most interesting of which is the regional vector.

In what appears to be the development of a Latino voter regionalism, the vote varied depending on what part of the country (and in some cases what part of a state) the vote was cast. For example, while Clinton secured 74 percent of the Latino vote in her home state of New York, available data also indicates that Obama won 59 percent of the 30- to 44-year-olds, the largest age bloc, in his home state of Illinois' Latino electorate.

Obama won important Latino votes -- and delegates -- in Colorado, Arizona and other states where Clinton was expected to overwhelm him. With the support of New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez and other members of the Latino political machine nurtured by her husband, the former president, Clinton won more than 60 percent of the Latino electorate in states like New Jersey and New York. And regardless of the final tallies in California, the Latino electorate has already proven to be a powerful, new and greatly misunderstood segment of a multi-hued electorate of the United States.

And, we return to the question of Obama's reputation amongst the "Latino" community. Apparently he's becoming favorite:

"The big enchilada will be Texas, followed by mid-sized states where Latinos are about 5 percent of the vote, states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland and Washington," said Gonzalez. "It's going to continue to be very interesting," said a smiling Gonzalez. "On the one hand," he added, "Latinos are clearly trending towards Obama who overcame a 27 point difference nationally. But, on the other hand, Clinton still won several states with (Latino) margins of more than 50 percent."

If Clinton's Latino advantage holds and if the trend, especially among young Latinos, favoring Obama continues, understanding the fluidity of the very racially and ethnically diverse Latino electorate will be mission critical to success well into November's general election.

Any thoughts on this article?