Vicente Fernández, Mexico’s iconic ranchera singer, is with her. In a video released Wednesday, he sang praises to US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, urging Mexican-Americans to support her.
The traditional music performer came out of retirement to do the video, which shows him leaning on a ranch fence interspersed with images of Latinos erecting houses, cooking meals, and shaking Clinton’s hand.
“My freedom, my rights, with Hillary there is respect,” goes his corrido, or ode, for “La Hillary.” “With her as president we’ll always have a bridge.”
The video was put together by the Latino Victory Project, a group co-founded by actress Eva Longoria to promote candidates who represent the Latino community. It’s landing at a time when some Democrats are worried their candidate is not doing enough to recruit Hispanic voters. A Univision poll released earlier this month shows that although Clinton is the community’s clear favorite, she’s not doing as well as president Barack Obama did in 2012.
Latino Victory Project’s choice of Fernández is savvy. The mustachioed singer is revered by both young and old. And with his ornate suits and gigantic charro hat, he stirs the kind of cultural pride that might just move traditionally aloof Hispanic voters to go to the polls—particularly at a time when many of them feel they are under attack by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Fernández’s “Corrido de Hillary Clinton” is also a testament to how much the star dislikes Trump. During his good-bye concert (link in Spanish) in April, he told a crowd of more than 100,000 that if he ever encountered the brash politician he would “spit in his face and tell him what he’s never heard in his life.”