The Americano

Last year, Newt Gingrich launched The Americano, a news site for Hispanic Americans. "[I]t is the bilingual brainchild of Sylvia Garcia, a longtime employee of Gingrich Communications, the former speaker's consulting business," wrote Michael Scherer on Time.com. "The idea came during the election," Garcia says. "There really isn't any media that is covering conservative values for Hispanics. Everything you see is very one-sided."

Today, the first annual Americano Forum will kick off in Washington, D.C. Three of the presentations:

• Why Hispanics are Natural Conservatives.
• Melting Pot or Salad Bowl?
• Hispanics and the American Experiment: The Greatness of Conservatism.

Some of the guests include Jeb Bush, Jr., former Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, former Prime Minister of Spain José María Aznar, and Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan.

The Washington Post notes that Fox News launched a Latino website, latino.foxnews.com, in October and that the Heritage Foundation will soon have Libertad.org. But "Gingrich's efforts are drawing the most attention," writes David Montgomery.

Montgomery quotes Lionel Sosa, "who pioneered GOP outreach to Lationos on behalf of Ronald Reagan and both George Bushes": "This is the first time that planning for the Latino vote and getting together all the conservative Latinos in a major effort has been done outside of a campaign.

Juan Hernandez told Montgomery, "Newt is setting a table that had not been set before."

Univision anchor Jorge Ramos: "It's a matter of respect. Newt Gingrich understands that." Part of that respect is that Gingrich has been studying Spanish an hour a week lately.

Gingrich told the Post:

My firm defense of American exceptionalism gets its strongest endorsement from first-generation immigrants, who walk up with tears in their eyes and say, 'This is why we came to America.' On one hand, they want to know that I'm sensitive to, and care about, their historical background; on the other hand, they really want me to be aggressively for America. It's the integrating of that balance that's so important.