San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Ruben Navarrette Jr. seems to be suggesting that recent Spanish language ads, last week from the Republicans and this week from the Democrates, reflect competency from McCain and lies from Obama. 

Obviously Navarrette Jr. is on board the with the McCain camp. I seem to remember a similar instance in 2004 when conservative talk show host Armstrong Williams was said to have been paid by the Republican Party to wax poetic about the Republican agenda.

According to polls conducted earlier this year by LULAC, a Latino political organization, Latinos are most concerned with economic issues. Navarrette Jr. seems to want to expand upon arguments made by Alberto Gonzales Jr. in his LA Times op-ed article this past July.

He uses these Spanish language ads to reignite those sentiments raised by Alberto Gonzales Jr. by instead referencing Rush Limbaugh.

Navarrette Jr.'s article also seems to be designed to create a chasm between the Latino and African American communities which community leaders have been trying hard to mend in an effort to quell the recent violent incidences between the two communities.

NavarretteJr., I hope, is not following the footsteps of Armstrong Williams. If Navarrtte Jr. thinks that both parties don't know how to talk to Latino voters he is correct. They also don't know how to talk to African American voters either. Nor do they know how to talk to female voters and working class white voters for that matter. Each party wants to win at any cost.

Problem here is that American voters are stuck with two choices. One, a candidate who has worked in the Latino community on labor, housing, and civil rights issues, as a community organizer. The other a Senator from a largely Latino populated state.

What Navarrette Jr. is overlooking is the diversity of Latinos nation wide. Caribbean Latinos in the northeast, Chicanos in the southeast. Each with varying concerns. Perhaps the two political parties need to be better versed on which issues transcend. But the way both Alberto Gonzales Jr. and Ruben Navarrette Jr. spin their versions, the voices of Latinos still will not be heard.