GOP Univision Debate Preview
Originally scheduled for September but postponed indefinitely after John McCain was the only leading Republican candidate to agree to participate, tonight's GOP Univision debate, hosted by the University of Miami, airs live from 7-9 pm on Univision cable channels as well as at the Univision website.
The format is conventional in that Univision news anchors will moderate and ask candidates questions on a range of issues. But the questions will be asked in Spanish, then translated into English for the candidates. The candidates will respond in English but the television and web audience will hear the Spanish translation of the answers. Folks like me, who cannot understand Spanish, can use the closed captioning feature on their televisions to read the English. English speakers in the live audience can wear headsets if they need the English version.
The Democratic Univision debate attracted an audience of 2.2 million television viewers, a far higher percentage of the Spanish speaking audience than the percentage of English speakers who watch the "traditional" debates on other cable networks.
The political context for tonight's debate includes this week's Pew Hispanic Center poll that finds "there is now a 34-percentage-point gap in partisan affiliation among Latinos. In July 2006, the same gap measured just 21 percentage points," reverberations of the CNN/YouTube debate that began with Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney questioning each other's anti-immigrant credentials, the rise of Mike Huckabee (in part attributed to his ability to rise above the negative tone of his rivals), and the locale itself, a swing state with a Cuban population that has favored Republicans.
Details are below the fold . . .
