One thing to bear in mind, here, is that the Latino's could provide the difference in several states which have now reached battleground status. They include Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Florida. Furthermore a strong Latino turnout for Obama could put heavy pressure on McCain to invest resources in Texas, and maybe even his home state of Arizona.

According to a new poll conducted by The Pew Hispanic Center, Obama leads Sen. John McCain among Latinos 66 percent to McCain's 23 percent. This is significantly better than the democrats performed with this group 4 years ago, and probably puts to rest all those theories that said Latino's would never vote for a black candidate.

"The giant has woken up and we are being prodded by the Obama campaign," said Rep. Hilda Solis, an early supporter of Obama's primary opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton, who now says she is firmly in the Obama camp. Clinton, who was very popular with Latino's during the primary will undoubtedly be asked to help reach ever greater numbers of this group as she begins campaigning for Obama in the coming months.

Salazar, who has worked on Hispanic outreach for the last two Democratic presidential campaigns, said this effort was different from any previous attempts.

"In the past, what you have seen is just talk," he said. "What you are seeing today is a real commitment."

Representatives from the Obama campaign said they were already running ads on Spanish-language radio stations in the four states and would soon be up with television ads.

"This time, the [Latino community] is not just being treated as an afterthought," said Rep. Raul M. Grijalva.