Teddy in East L.A.
Politico.com
Kennedy addressed an Obama rally at East Los Angeles College this morning, introduced with a credential that the campaign hopes will appeal to Hispanic voters: Kennedy and Obama were the only two senators, the campaign says, to participate in the giant May 1, 2006 immigration marches.
"In the streets of Chicago it was our next president, Barack Obama, that marched, and in the streets of Washington, D.C., it was Sen. Edward Kennedy who marched," said Maria Elena Durazo, a key Los Angeles labor leader.
But the event, at a mostly Hispanic college in a Hispanic and Asian part of town, also served as a demonstration of the ground Obama has to make up here: The crowd seemed largely made up of Obama supporters from elsewhere in Los Angeles.
"I've never seen a lot of white people here before," said Edwin Morales, 25, who grew up in the neighborhood and now studies at Cal State Los Angeles but came back to see Obama.
Morales said he'd supported Edwards but switched to Obama because the two share an ideology: "They're for the poor, for the working class."
Kennedy spoke of Obama's "transformational" potential, and tried out his own Spanish.
"Un voto por Obama es un voto para la gente," he said, gamely, before offering his joking excuse.
"It's a Castillo accent — it's a Castilian accent," he said, to laughter.
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