Interpreters prep for roles in presidential debate

WASHINGTON — His is the voice of presidents, but tonight in Miami — after much study and meditation, an energy bar, almonds and water without ice — Vincente de la Vega will lend it to Barack Obama.

He will track the candidate's mood and mannerisms, chart any eruptions of emotion, channel any tempests of tone. For 90 minutes the Havana-born de la Vega will do his best to "become" the African-American senator from Illinois.

Whatever Obama says during the Democratic presidential candidates debate in Miami, de la Vega will say it for him — in Spanish. Whenever Obama's lips move, a national television audience of Spanish speakers will hear de la Vega's supple baritone.

A team of interpreters working for de la Vega will perform the same service for the seven other Democratic presidential candidates participating in the historic forum tonight. Sen. Joseph Biden, of Delaware, fresh off a trip to Iraq, will not be participating.

Univision network

It is the first presidential candidates debate broadcast live in Spanish, on Univision, the highest-rated Spanish-language television network in the United States. It will take place at the University of Miami. Univision is not saying how many viewers it expects, but the network's nightly news program gets an audience of 1.5 million, according to Univision.

The voice of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will be done by a woman, of course.

The art and technology of simultaneous interpretation — not translation, that's for printed words, not spoken ones — is a central wrinkle of this candidates' forum. It will go down in history as the pioneering debate in Spanish where ... speaking Spanish is forbidden! More on that in a minute.

"You need to live that person, and act that person, when you are interpreting for them," de la Vega said by telephone from Miami, where he is the president and founder of Precision Translating Services.

The sound of those vocal cords is familiar to many. For Univision, de la Vega, 58, said he has rendered the pronouncements of every president since Ronald Reagan, plus countless celebrity guests on the network's variety shows.

"When [Attorney General] Alberto Gonzales resigned, I was Alberto Gonzales' voice," de la Vega said. "Then, about an hour and a half later, President Bush went on the air and talked about that topic, and I was President Bush's voice."

He assigned himself the role of Obama, because, he said, "I like him, I like his platform."

To prepare, de la Vega has been studying a DVD of Obama's public-speaking and debate performances, absorbing characteristic vocabulary, verbal ticks, inflections. Interpreters for the other candidates, also working for de la Vega's company, have been doing the same.

Nobody needs to bone up on the Republican candidates yet. Only Sen. John McCain of Arizona said yes to Univision's invitation for a GOP debate, so it's on hold.

"Even though he at times is a fast speaker," de la Vega said of Obama, "his enunciation is impeccable, and that makes it easier for the interpreter."

Obama can muddle through a bit of Spanish. On the air recently, he serenaded popular Los Angeles radio DJ Eddie "El Piolin" Sotelo with a few lines of a Mexican ballad.

For candidates, a ban

But it would be muy malo for Obama to break into Spanish on Univision Sunday night. Ditto for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who is Latino and bilingual; and for Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who became proficient in Spanish during a stint in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic.

When Univision proposed the event last spring, Dodd and Richardson immediately accepted and made it clear they would do the whole thing in Spanish.

Supporters of the other candidates raised questions about that and Univision responded with an explicit ban on Spanish from the lips of the candidates.

Here are the linguistic acrobatics: Univision news anchors Maria Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos will ask the questions in Spanish. An interpreter will render the questions in English for the candidates, who will wear earpieces. (This is where Dodd and Richardson could jump in to answer without waiting for the interpreter)

Then candidates will answer in English. A team of interpreters will be sitting together at a table offstage. One interpreter will be assigned to each candidate, and each interpreter will have two television monitors, one showing his or her candidate and one showing the whole scene, according to de la Vega.

Viewers at home will hear only Spanish, but Univision will provide closed-captioning of the questions translated into English and the candidates' own English responses.

The forum is a sign of the growing attention being paid to the Latino electorate and the rising status of Univision for reaching those voters. Nielsen Media Research just started including Spanish-language networks in the same ratings as English-language ones. For the week ending Sept. 2, in prime time, Univision was the top-rated network in any language for viewers 18 to 34.

De la Vega has been interpreting for 37 years. He also speaks French, German and Yiddish. He takes a method-school approach to the art. No bland, emotionless voice-overs for him, unless the speaker himself is bland and emotionless. He thinks you have to get into the part.

Say Obama sounds a little sarcastic in rebutting Clinton. Or distraught about casualties in Iraq. Or amused by some crack by Richardson.

De la Vega will try to capture those nuances and will even chuckle, if Obama chuckles. The other interpreters will do the same.

"It's vital. You do need to portray those emotions ... or the lack of emotion of the speaker for whom you're interpreting," de la Vega says.

Simultaneous interpretations aren't perfectly simultaneous. There will be the slightest delay, from a fraction of a second to a couple of seconds, after the lips stop moving as the interpretation catches up.

If the candidates get feisty and there are overlapping interjections, the interpreters will attempt to render that chaos, talking over each other on purpose. Their work is a fluid art, practiced live, with no second chances or time for dictionary consultation.

It's exhausting work, made somewhat easier in this case by the one-minute time limit on candidates' answers.

He's ready with possible interpretations of the buzzwords of current political discourse:

No child left behind: Que ningún niño se quede atrás.

Pathway to citizenship: Legalizarse.

First responders: Los primeros en responder.

Conditions on the ground: El estado del terreno.

Drawdown of troops: Retirar las tropas.

It will be another mission accomplished for Univision's voice of presidents.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.