It would seem to make sense. I know, some might say that the best way to reach a mass audience of Hispanics is via television, radio, and earned media (PR). Political advertising is all about reaching a mass audience of voters, right?

However, I would counter with one major issue that most candidates for public office, particularly the Presidency, know all too well – most Hispanics don’t vote (most because they can’t and the rest because they choose not to). Check out a recent blog covering the Pew “The Latino Electorate: An Analysis of the 2006 Election” study on this exact subject.

However, I would argue that those Hispanics that are online, and are active Web users, are more likely to 1) be legal citizens ABLE to vote, 2) more likely to be registered and 3) more likely engaged in the political process (due to the massive amount of political content that is everywhere on the Web – both in English and Spanish). While I don’t have definitive data or a study to prove this out, the other demographic and online activity data that is available on Hispanics seems to dovetail well with my assumptions.

So my thesis is this – if the candidates want to reach out to and cost-effectively target the niche audience of likely Hispanic voters, they can do it most efficiently using the Web.

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