Hillary Clinton is pitching her grandmother chops by listing her commonalities with
"your abuela" on her presidential campaign website – but the Spanish term apparently aimed at Hispanic voters is raising eyebrows.
A backlash was gaining steam on Twitter under the hashtags #NotMyAbuela and #Hispandering, with one poster grousing the website pitch is anything but subtle. Another called the strategy "baiting." On the campaign website, the page gushes "It's no secret that Hillary is loving her role as grandma," noting the news that daughter Chelsea is expecting her second child, and that Clinton is "always happy to talk about her 'beautiful, perfect' granddaughter," Charlotte.
Then among the list of "seven ways" the candidate is like "your abuela," is "She isn't afraid to talk about the importance of el respeto [respect] (especially when it comes to women)," and in response to GOP front-runner Donald Trump's immigration stance, "She had one word … Basta! Enough!" Another complains she never got to go to her own grandmother's funeral because of "unjust immigration laws."
Clinton has attempted to court Hispanic voters before, awkwardly,
the Washington Post reports.
"I gotta tell you, I love being 'La Hillary,'" she told rally-goers at a Texas event in October, the Post reports. "I promise I will keep working on my pronunciation — but I'm not just La Hillary. I'm tu Hillary."
"If Clinton has the Latino vote all wrapped up, as the polls seem to indicate, why is she trying so hard to court that community?"
Dallas Morning News columnist Ruben Navarrette wrote after the visit. "Because her Latino support is a mile wide and an inch deep."
The Post reports that a Univision poll in July found 73 percent of Latino voters would cast their ballot for Clinton, and a Washington Post/ABC News survey in September found her strongly favored by voters of color, the newspaper reports. And in the 2008 presidential primary in which she was "schlonged," as
Trump indelicately phrased it — Clinton won 2-1 among Latinos, the Post reports.