But now his show, “La Voz del Pueblo,” has grown to be the biggest and most-trusted Spanish-language talk show in a state where Hispanics could easily decide the presidential election.

And so, on Tuesday morning, a woman’s voice on KBNO said, “Hi, give me one moment, the President will be on the line.”

“No problem. No problem,” replied Sergio.

A minute later, Obama said, “Hello, Fernando?”

So began an interview that was scheduled for 10 minutes but ran about 20. (Read about it here.)

“To the best of my knowledge it’s the first time a sitting president called into Spanish-language radio here in Colorado,” Sergio told me. “You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t appreciate that. It was a very positive experience for me and [my listeners] to have the most important man in the world calling.”

So how’d Sergio land Obama?

“We approached the Obama campaign,” Sergio told me. “They did their research and expressed interest. And then we approached Secretary Salazar, and the Secretary said, ‘I will ensure that they know your show is an important show and that the President should speak to you.’ We heard back in a couple days.”

“Four years ago, I was able to speak with John McCain twice, but we were unable to speak with Obama,” Sergio told me. “Instead, we got Joe Biden.”

Republicans are reaching out to Sergio this year as well.

“I had a conversation with [Colorado Republican Party Chairman] Ryan Call,” Sergio said. “He told me, ‘You can be sure that I will have Governor Romney on your show at least twice this year.’”

Has a date been set for Romney?

“Not yet,” Sergio replied. “It’s just a promise. It’s up to him. The doors are wide open. We will be as respectful with Governor Romney as we were with the President.

“At some point during this process I will make the case for one of the other,” Sergio said. “Twenty or 30 days before the election. Here is who I’m going to vote for, and here are the 10 reasons. But let people become well informed first.

“I stress how important it is to vote. Every single day, I say, ‘You go out there and you vote. Don’t let anyone else decide this for you.’ This will be a permanent theme until November.”

It’s an approach that’s in keeping with how Sergio runs his radio show, which he sees as a “platform is to try to help people.”

The show, which airs 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on 1280 AM, mostly addresses consumer issues, like problems with the banking industry and issues with police and immigration. Immigration attorneys make regular appearances on the program.

“The platform has worked out for us,” says Sergio, who’s been doing radio for 18 years. “It’s kind of like Martino’s show, but we’re more into helping people than promoting businesses.”

Sergio has an active presence on Facebook, but his show isn’t streamed online, because of steep fees that are required due to the fact that KBNO mostly airs music, Sergio told me. He hopes a solution can be found and online streaming will be added at some point.

Asked about the issues he thinks are most important to Hispanics, Sergio said he wavers between the economy and immigration.

“From my perspective, of course, it’s the economy, but immigration, for me, it’s a matter of respect. It’s emotional. I feel it. There is no other issue that has the same emotional impact. I was born in United States. But I witness the difficulties they face. I listen to the phone calls and the abuse.”

“I am an independent,” said Sergio, who supported Michael Bennet in 2010 and is leaning toward Obama. “I try in my own wisdom to do what’s right for my listeners.”

Jason Salzman runs the BigMedia blog and writes frequently at Huffington Post and Colorado Pols.

(Image of Obama: Hooper)

The American Independent News Network (the Colorado Independent’s parent organization) is participating in”Support Your Media Day,” a 24-hour online fundraising event designed to “support and strengthen independent media outlets,” like ours. What’s more, for every dollar up to $12,500 donated, a foundation has pledged to donate $2 towards AINN’s coverage of hot-button women’s health and reproductive issues.

The event runs from the stroke of midnight Wednesday Pacific Time (1 a.m. MST) and ends at 11:59 p.m PT (12:59 a.m. MST). Click here for information on the event, and be sure to return tomorrow to donate.

The American Independent News Network is committed to impacting public debate and influencing positive change.

AINN and the Colorado Independent are non-profits funded almost entirely by donations from readers and supporters. Thank you very much readers and supporters!

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

The board of the 501(c)3 American Independent News Network on Wednesday announced it will shut down several of its websites on Friday, deciding “to shift publication of its news into a single site, the American Independent at Americanindependent.com.”

On Thursday, however, AINN officials announced the organization will continue to operate as an independent online news organization, maintaining sites in Colorado, Florida and Texas, as well as the American Independent site.

For funding reasons, AINN is shutting down websites in New Mexico, Minnesota and Michigan.

“There’s very good reason to believe the moves being made now by our parent organization, some of them certainly painful, will better fuel the mission of the Colorado Independent, allowing it to deliver even more of the robust brand of new-media journalism the site pioneered in the state and that it has continued to develop and deliver for years,” editor Scot Kersgaard said.

“We look forward to saying more about the organization’s plans in the near future. The main thing is that the independent, insightful and credible brand of journalism offered at TCI will continue into a very critical election year.”

The Colorado Independent was the first site to open among the organization’s network sites and has enjoyed consistent readership and fundraising support over the years.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

“If the mayor of our country’s largest city thinks protecting the press means silencing them, we’re in big trouble,” wrote Free Press Program Director Josh Stearns at the organization’s website. Stearns has been tracking harassment and arrests of journalists covering the Occupy movement for the last two months.

From the Free Press campaign web page:

In what appears to have been a coordinated effort to block coverage of the raid, many journalists said they were barred from reporting the police action. Ten reporters were also arrested, another was put in a choke hold and others described extensive police harassment.

This kind of police response is happening all over the country. Police harassment of the press has been reported during “Occupy” protests in Chicago, Denver, Oakland, Portland and beyond.

We need to send the message loud and clear to mayors across the country: They must drop all charges and publicly commit to protecting press freedoms in their cities. This is especially true for Mayor Bloomberg, who took full responsibility for the NYPD’s actions.

Speak out now: Tell Mayor Bloomberg and the U.S. Conference of Mayors to publicly commit to protecting journalists covering all protests and police actions. You can also call Mayor Bloomberg at 212-639-9675 to speak out against the most recent arrests of journalists.

Free Press launched a similar campaign after police attacks on members of the press during the Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities in 2008. The Free Press petition then garnered tens of thousands of signatures within days. Journalists were released from custody and some of them eventually received settlements.

More than twenty journalists covering the Occupy protests have been arrested in the last two months and many more have been harassed. Police have reportedly pepper sprayed and gassed journalists and employed strobe lights when confronting protesters in order to mess with media efforts to video tape the action.

Police shunted reporters away from Zuccotti Park Tuesday in the small hours of the morning before they moved in to oust the protesters, including a reporter for the New York Times. “When it comes to the taking down of Occupy Wall Street, at least in New York, the whole world is not watching,” Times media writer David Carr said, citing the famous mass-media era protest mantra.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

Ryan interviewed Colorado Independent reporter Troy Hooper for her report, which she broke into two segments, which ran Monday and Tuesday of this week.

Locally, the story was aired on KBCO, KHOW and KBPI among many other stations. Most of the radio stations airing the story do not publicly report their audience numbers, but just counting the ones who shared that information, the story was heard by well over two million people.

PRICE: We don’t see eye to eye on everything about public broadcasting, but I know you and your family have supported Rocky Mountain PBS with an individual gift.

LAMBORN: Yes, that may surprise some people because as you know I don’t support federal funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But I do know that Rocky Mountain PBS has a vital role in the marketplace of Colorado media. So I urge your viewers to remember their own role. If you watch and enjoy what you see here, your membership dollars are vital to keep it on the air.

Lamborn introduced two bills to zero out funds for public TV and radio this year. His HR 68 would amend the Communications Act of 1934 to prohibit federal funding for public broadcasting after fiscal year 2013. His H.R. 69 separately targets National Public Radio funding.

He also introduced a bill to cut NPR funding last year but it was shot down by the Democratic-controlled House.

Lamborn has characterized his efforts as cost-cutting measures during a time of historic budget deficits.

“I have been seeking to push Big Bird out of the nest for over a year, based on the simple fact that we can no longer afford to spend taxpayer dollars on non-essential government programs,” he has said.

Of course, when it comes to cutting “nonessential programs,” members of Congress come up with different wish lists. Lamborn, whose Fifth District hosts a wide range of military academies, training installations and defense contractor businesses, has championed all variety of defense spending during his years on Capitol Hill.

After Fox News launched its own campaign to “defund” NPR in the fall, Lamborn appeared on the network several times and ratcheted up his rhetoric around the legislation.

“You may have heard about the recent firing of NPR News Analyst Juan Williams and the $1.8 million donation by liberal activist George Soros to hire 100 NPR reporters,” Lamborn wrote to supporters. “These two actions make it clear that public broadcasting is a friend and protector of liberal issues and political correctness, at the expense of free speech and balanced news reporting.”

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

“Doron Ofir Casting, in association with a major cable network, is looking for young hot politicos who care about America, follow the heated debates, rallies, protests, and scandals!” a release sent to press today reports. “We are looking for people of all party affliliations [sic] or those who are unaffliated [sic] as long as you’re outspoken, fearless, free thinking, unbound, unleashed, unrestrained, appear to be between 21-35 and are politically active and telegenic. WE WANT YOU!”

The translation that no one needs made: “We’re looking for sexy narcissists who aren’t afraid to drink too much and act horribly on television. Think Snooki and Anthony Weiner.”

Seriously, maybe staring into the horrific funhouse mirror that is reality TV will turn our politics around. Why not?

The release:

DORON OFIR CASTING LAUNCHES THE CASTING CALL FOR THE HOTTEST POLITICOS IN THE USA!

LOS ANGELES, CA (October 24, 2011) – Doron Ofir Casting, the epic star making company behind Jersey Shore, Nashville Star, Millionaire Matchmaker and The A-List officially confirms and announces the nationwide search for political activists with personalities that rally behind a cause and influence others to do the same.

“It’s about time we give a mainstream media opportunity to the generation that has the fortitude to proudly live as a representative of their individual politial beliefs. What could be more American than that?” Doron Ofir – Executive Casting Director.

Doron Ofir Casting, in association with a major cable network, is looking for young hot politicos who care about America, follow the heated debates, rallies, protests, and scandals! We are looking for people of all party affliliations or those who are unaffliated as long as you’re outspoken, fearless, free thinking, unbound, unleashed, unrestrained, appear to be between 21-35 and are politically active and telegenic. WE WANT YOU!

You’ve volunteered for a local political campaign, stood in protest, logged over a thousand comments on blogs, tweeted Fox News or CNN on a daily basis, you run your own blog, vlog, stream, podcast, and are still looking for the right forum to express yourself. Whatever the case, we want to hear from you!

With personalities such as Ann Coulter, Bill Maher, Meghan McCain, Rachael Maddow, Keith Olberman, Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart, Arianna Huffington, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore and Bill O’Reilly influencing the world of politics and dictating our national conversation, shouldn’t it be your turn?

Register online on the digital application: www.partypoliticscasting.com

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

CitizenLink leans on high-profile religious-right attorney James Bopp to make the case against disclosure.

“We are certainly going to pursue the case vigorously, because the result of the judge’s decision is going to literally be a free-fire zone when we talk about the court sanctioning harassment of people who participate in our democratic process,” Bopp is quoted to say. “Absent the prospect of protection in future cases, I think the whole idea here by the homosexual lobby is they now have a threat. They [will seek the names of donors] and put them on the Internet. So they already know they’ve got a weapon of intimidation, and without the courts’ protection, they’ll continue to use it.”

The ruling upholding California’s campaign finance disclosure laws was handed down by U.S. District Judge Morrison England Jr on Thursday. California requires political campaigns to disclose the identity of anyone who donates more than $100.

During the 2008 heated Prop 8 campaign, gay-rights websites like Californians Against Hate that opposed the ballot initiative posted information such as the names, addresses and employers of donors to the campaign. In Washington state a similar proposal saw the same kind of websites appear. There, the sites included Whosigned.org and Knowthyneighbor.org.

CitizenLink refers readers to the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation report on harassment against Prop 8 supporters. The Heritage authors placed the harassment into three categories: vandalism, hostility and slurs, and violence and threats of violence.

Vandals also hit houses of worship. Perpetrators used orange paint to vandalize a statue of the Virgin Mary outside one church. Offices at the Cornerstone Church in Fresno were egged. Swastikas and other graffiti were scrawled on the walls of the Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in San Francisco, a parish known widely as being “gay-friendly.” In San Luis Obispo, the Assembly of God Church was egged and toilet-papered, and a Mormon church had an adhesive poured onto a doormat and keypad. Signs supporting Prop 8 were twisted into a swastika at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Riverside. Someone used a heavy object wrapped with a Yes on 8 sign to smash the window of a pastor’s office at Messiah Lutheran Church in Downey.

Fear of harassment on the part of Christian groups has been a marked and ironic aspect of the Prop 8 campaign and its aftermath. At the trial that followed passage of the initiative and that considered whether the new law was constitutional, the team defending the law fought hard to keep the proceedings from being broadcast, fearing that witnesses for the defense would be harassed. Yet LGBT people have been one of the most harassed and discriminated against classes of American citizens in the post-slavery era.

In a previous ruling on the matter, Judge England pointed out that, if there were crimes committed by supporters of either side of the debate, those crimes could and should be prosecuted. As for the rest, he said, heated exchanges are part of the political process and aren’t reason to limit the ability of Californians to fully inform themselves on questions they’re asked to answer at the ballot box.

Bopp plans to appeal England’s decision once the written version is made available for review.

Bopp recently filed a brief with the US Supreme Court on behalf of Catholic Answers, a nonprofit group that has been penalized by the IRS for performing express advocacy against 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

The discussion touches on stories reported by the Michigan Messenger on a new Brennan Center for Justice report on the new rash of voter laws and on the fact that Michigan appears to be violating federal laws that seek to expand voter registration there.

Note: At the end of the discussion, Tomasic refers to the Denver District judge who ruled against Gessler on the matter of inactive voter ballots as “she.” He meant “he,” as in Judge Brian Whitney.

“Apologies, Judge Whitney! I had Denver County Clerk Debra Johnson’s face playing across my mind,” says Tomasic.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.