Obama visits Puerto Rico with eye on U.S. voters

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Wooing Hispanic voters back home, President Barack Obama kept his campaign pledge to become the first president since John F. Kennedy to make an official visit to this recession-battered U.S. territory. "The aspirations and the struggles on this island mirror those across America," Obama declared Tuesday.

On a sweltering day, thousands crowded the main roads and waved flags as Obama's motorcade roared by. A huge banner filled eight stories of a building, featuring the images of Kennedy and Obama.

Puerto Ricans are an important component of the larger, fast-growing Hispanic population in the U.S. - now totaling 50 million - that Obama wants to mobilize for his re-election. Even though he spent mere hours in Puerto Rico, at one point savoring a local sandwich specialty, the visit was designed to lift the president's visibility and create goodwill far beyond this island, its grand colonial fortresses and it azure waters.

"Every day, Boricuas help write the American story," Obama said, using the term Puerto Ricans use to describe themselves.

Residents of Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens but cannot vote in presidential general elections, only in primaries, one of many factors that give rise to a sense of second-class citizenship among some here. But they can vote in the mainland, and Florida, a key presidential battleground, has the second-largest Puerto Rican population in the U.S., behind New York. Pennsylvania, another competitive state, ranks fourth in Puerto Rican population.