usatoday, Sept 10, 2007
DENVER: Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson said Monday that sponsors of the first ever U.S. presidential debate on a Spanish-language network slighted them when they barred him from speaking Spanish in what he called appeasement to the front-running candidates.
The New Mexico governor, who is Hispanic, said Hispanics will be a major force in the upcoming presidential election, especially in states with early primaries and caucuses such as Arizona and California.
"Hispanics, I believe, are going to determine this election. I was disappointed that Univision, the largest Hispanic network, practiced English-only, instead of letting the one Hispanic candidate just say a few words in Spanish," Richardson said.
"I felt it was a gag that was unfortunate because here you had the leading Hispanic network in the country not allowing Spanish. It was a bow to the so-called front-runners who didn't want us to show off our Spanish," he said at a news conference to announce a Hispanic outreach program for his campaign.
During the Sunday debate in Coral Gables, Florida, anchors Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas posed questions in Spanish and the candidates had earpieces to hear simultaneous translations into English. The candidates' responses were simultaneously translated into Spanish for broadcast.
Univision did not want to give Richardson an unfair advantage, spokeswoman Brooke Morganstein said.
"We wanted to ensure a level playing field for all of the candidates," she said.
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