The most prized credential of Hillary Rodham Clinton's political director may not be her connections on Capitol Hill, her experience courting the crucial Latino vote or the diversity she brings as the child of a Mexican immigrant, but her run for office — which she lost.
Last year, Amanda Renteria returned home to California's Central Valley to run for Congress and got crushed. The race in the heavily Latino district exposed blind spots in Democratic strategy with Latino voters, who largely stayed home. The message for Clinton in her 2016 presidential run was clear: The gains Democrats had been making among Latinos could stall anytime.
Now, as Clinton's political director, Renteria is putting the campaign's vast resources to work avenging the 2014 midterms, when Democrats were unable to mobilize the coalition of minority voters that had helped elect President Obama twice.
"It is really time for Latinos to understand who is with them and who is not," Renteria said during a break from the National Council of La Raza conference in Kansas City, where she was working the hallways before Clinton addressed a packed ballroom. "One of the real opportunities in a presidential election is to truly have a message that can break through, even in the little towns where I grew up."
Clinton's massive Latino outreach machine is unprecedented for this stage in a primary. Most Latinos don't even know the name of Clinton's closest challenger for the Democratic nomination, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, according a new Univision poll.
