The road to the White House ,Obama and Romney, at war for the Latino vote

Barack Obama's dialogue with two of the most respected Hispanic journalists in the United States, Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas, came to an end when Ramos asked what was the greatest failure of his presidency.

"Jorge, my biggest failure so far is that we have not yet achieved a comprehensive immigration reform," Obama said.

It was an explicit recognition of a promise he made in 2008 and never fulfilled: sign, during the first year of his term, a law that would offer a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States most of them Hispanics.

In one of the few matches that given the campaign, both Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, complained this week that Washington treats problems of millions of immigrant families as a "political football".

And they did it with a day apart, at the same journalists and in the same place: a "meet the candidates" organized by the Uni vision network, to which both agreed, giving a small triumph for the Hispanic network, which had been excluded of the presidential debates.

There, each delivered a message designed to appeal to the millions of Hispanic voters, although they are scattered across the country, have more presence in several states where the election will be decided: Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia and Florida, one of the most coveted spoils electoral map.

Obama has an overwhelming advantage, to have the support of 72% of "likely voters" Hispanic, against only 22% who would vote for Romney, according to a survey of the Pew Research Center, released yesterday.

So, Obama faces the challenge of making these "likely voters" bear on November 6: among Latinos, the participation rate is lower. Romney seeks to close the gap and get back 38%, slightly higher than that earned George W. Bush in 2000.

Of course there is a huge difference between the two Republican campaigns: Bush was the last president who supported and came close to achieving that Congress passed in 2001, an amnesty for undocumented immigrants.

Obama seized on that background to justify his broken promise, saying it was naive and did not expect the Republicans to give him back to an initiative now supported in the past. In fact, the last U.S. president who signed an amnesty was a Republican: Ronald Reagan.