Obama campaign launches Latino ads and voter outreach initiative (VIDEO)

President Barack Obama’s reelection team today launched Latinos for Obama, a Hispanic outreach program that will register voters and work to turn out the vote for the president, CBS News reported. The initiative will host events like house parties and manage the campaign’s Spanish-language advertising.

Obama’s first Spanish-language radio and television ads started airing in Colorado, Nevada and Florida today, the Chicago Tribune reported. The ads feature Latino Obama campaign staffers explaining how Obama’s education policies have helped Latinos, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Obama got 67 percent of the Latino vote in 2008, according to the Chicago Tribune. A new poll from the Pew Research Center shows that Hispanic voters favor Obama to Romney 67 percent to 27 percent, CBS News reported.

However, the GOP is not giving up without a fight. The Romney campaign has hired Ed Gillespie, a political strategist who advocates aggressively courting Latino voters, according to the Wall Street Journal. Romney told supporters at a fundraiser on Sunday that "we have to get Hispanic voters to vote for our party" or it "spells doom for us.”

And the Republican National Committee launched its own Hispanic Outreach Program this week, appointing state directors for the program in Florida, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia and North Carolina, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina suggested to the Chicago Tribune that this GOP effort to win Latino voters is too little, too late. “They're naming one person per state … whereas we've had operations on the ground for over a year and are working every single night hitting the doors," he said.

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