The emerging political clout of California's communities of color has been the subject of much discussion, but little doubt this election year. Perhaps the most striking sign of this phenomenon is the role now being played by the state's ethnic media. PNS Associate Editor Alfonso Serrano is formerly the editor of El Mensajero, a bilingual weekly published in San Francisco.

Call them the new majority, the sleeping giant, the wild card, the ethnic voters -- whatever you like -- but don't forget to call them.

And if you want their vote, it looks like the best way to call them is through their own media.

"To reach the new voters of San Francisco, if you're not communicating through the ethnic media then you're going to be off the boat," said Don Solem, president of Solem and Associates, the city's largest public relations firm.

Vote watchers say that is a major lesson of the state's recent election battles. In particular, the race for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination and the campaign for Proposition 227.

The senate primary pitted Matt Fong, current state treasurer against Darrell Issa, a businessman who spent millions of his own money on the race. Going into election day, the race was too close to call, though some pundits picked Issa by a nose.

Election day saw Fong a winner by 100,000 votes. Fong's secret? The ethnic media.

The Fong camp advertised relentlessly in ethnic media in the final weeks of the campaign, with full page ads in the Chinese press, and targeted Korean and Japanese language outlets as well. Spanish language ads on Univision, the Spanish language television network, put Fong's stance in front of Latino voters as well.

Asian Americans account for only four percent of California voters, but those numbers may have been enough to make the difference.

"Fong won because of intense lobbying in the ethnic news media, more than any other candidate," said David Lee, director of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee. "He spent a lot of money through the Chinese language media every day during the two weeks leading up to election."

Fong seems to agree. The day after the election, he took the time to thank the ethnic media in Los Angeles for their support.

The battle against Proposition 227 was another show of force involving minority community media, helping produce an impressive turnaround among Asians and Latinos to the "No" side, although the proposition ultimately won.

Early in the campaign, public opinion polls consistently showed Latino voters favoring Proposition 227 by considerable margins. On election day, however, exit polls showed that roughly 62% of Latinos voted against the measure.

Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll says that the drop was extremely swift. "One week before the vote, support was declining from 60 to 52 percent. By the time of the vote, it had dropped to 37-38 percent."

As for that movement in the final week, he said, "you would have to attribute a good part of it to Latino media."

DiCamillo and others point not only to Spanish-language advertising but to extensive coverage in Latino media, including a special debate for the governor's race sponsored by KMEX and La Opinion. "It was a major campaign event," Di Camillo said.

Time will tell what role the ethnic media will play in California politics, but the enormous increase in commercial advertising might provide a clue.

In dollar terms, the ethnic media have great appeal, especially when under-funded campaigns go up against candidates and propositions with seemingly unlimited amounts of cash.

A candidate for statewide office, for example, paid roughly $55,000 for a full page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle. In contrast, San Francisco's Asian Week charges $1,727 for a page. At the L.A. Watts Times, a black-owned weekly with a circulation of 25,000, the rate is $3,900. Sing Tao, a Bay Area Chinese language newspaper with 60,000 circulation charges $1,200 for a full page advertisement.

While the per-reader costs may even out, "You get a great bang for your buck," said Steve Schmidt, spokesman for the Matt Fong U.S. Senate Committee. "Advertising in the Chinese, Latin, black publications is not nearly as expensive as advertising in the mainstream, and by advertising with them, you are saying, 'we care about your community, we understand you are important."'