Dems woo Latinos in Texas Clinton, Obama camps count on their experience in California to aid them in key contest Tuesday.

By Aurelio Rojas - arojas@sacbee.com

Published 12:00 am PST Saturday, March 1, 2008 In the month since Latino voters propelled Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to a nine-point victory over Sen. Barack Obama in California's Democratic presidential primary, Clinton has lost 11 straight primaries and caucuses.

With her campaign on the ropes, the New York senator is counting on Latinos to help her win Tuesday's pivotal Democratic presidential contest in Texas.

And she's relying on the same formula that worked in California: Hold her own with white voters, particularly women, and close the deal with Latinos.

Both campaigns hope their experience with California's growing Latino electorate will transfer into Latino votes in Texas. Both are drawing Latino politicians from the Golden State to help.

Moreover, Clinton dispatched Ace Smith, the Bay Area political consultant who ran Clinton's California campaign, to strategize in Texas.

For Clinton, the stakes are high.

Even former President Bill Clinton concedes his wife needs to win Texas, the biggest prize among the four states holding presidential contests Tuesday, to keep her hopes alive.

Obama, seeking to become the first black person to win a party presidential nomination, has winnowed Clinton's double-digit lead in Texas to a tossup in the polls since California's primary.

Both states are sprawling border states and share other similarities: each has roughly 2.5 million registered Latino voters, the overwhelming majority of whom trace their ancestry to Mexico.

Henry Flores, a political science professor at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, said Latinos in California have "more of an urban experience." The migration of Latinos from rural to urban areas in Texas, he said, is a more recent phenomenon.

"The union movement has also been more active in California than in Texas," Flores said. "As a result, Latinos in Texas tend to be more conservative."

Once a solidly Democratic state, Texas is now a Republican stronghold. But Democrats still control 13 of its 32 congressional districts, and nine of those seats are occupied by minority lawmakers – seven Latinos and two African Americans.

Exit polls showed Latinos accounted for 30 percent of the voters in California's Democratic primary and backed Clinton by a 2-to-1 ratio. In Texas, where Latinos have an older political heritage, their votes could constitute 40 percent of the turnout, according to both campaigns.

Smith said the similarities between the states are as obvious as the differences are subtle.

"In terms of community, there's no difference between Latinos in California and Texas," said Smith, who in 2005 helped Antonio Villaraigosa become the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles in modern times.

But there are "mechanical" differences in how Texas elections are conducted, he said. More Latinos vote early in Texas, where voting sites are set up in every county outside supermarkets and in other high-traffic areas. The sites, which opened Feb. 19, are open 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and include curbside voting.

"The result is that Latinos absolutely dominate early voting in Texas," Smith said, adding that a much lower percentage of Latinos vote early in California.

Texas also has a unique two-step open primary. Voters can cast ballots for anyone on the ballot, regardless of party affiliation. Democratic caucuses take place the same day and select about a third of the state's convention delegates.

Besides Smith, other California supporters of Clinton – notably Villaraigosa and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez – are heading to Texas for a last-minute push.

State Sens. Gloria Romero and Gil Cedillo, both Los Angeles Democrats, will campaign for Obama. Cedillo backs Obama largely because of their shared support of legislation allowing illegal immigrants to apply for driver's licenses.

Clinton's ties to Texas date back to 1972, when she registered voters along the border with Mexico in support of George McGovern. Her husband was the first president to have two Latino Cabinet members serve simultaneously.

The New York senator has been endorsed by former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros, a San Antonio native. But Federico Peña, a Laredo native who ran the departments of Energy and Transportation in Bill Clinton's Cabinet, backs Obama.

According to a Texas A&M/ Latino Decisions Poll released Tuesday, nearly three out of four Latino voters said they plan to vote for Clinton, compared to 22 percent for Obama.

In California, Latino voters preferred Clinton by a 2-to-1 ratio, according to exit polls.

Obama does not have to get the majority of Latino votes to win Texas. But the Illinois senator has to chip away at Clinton's support – and there are indications he's doing that.

Many Latinos in Texas are only beginning to learn Obama's story as an immigrant's son, said Lydia Camarillo, vice president of the San Antonio-based Southwest Voter Registration Education Project.

"In California, Latinos only had a week to get to know Obama because of the tight primary schedule," she said. "In Texas, a lot of resources have been spent to get his story out."

Camarillo said Obama is gaining the votes of young Latinos because of his opposition to the Iraq war. Clinton voted to authorize the invasion.

Camarillo said Obama also has won some Latino voters because of the driver's license issue. Last year, Clinton suggested such a proposal might be reasonable, but she quickly backed away from the idea.

Obama can count on strong support from blacks in cities such as Dallas and Houston. That support will be amplified under the arcane rules by which Texas Democrats award delegates.

To offset Obama's advantage, Clinton must do extremely well with the Latino voters who dominate large parts of south Texas from El Paso to Brownsville.

Pundits are hesitant to say who will win. But Camarillo said that whatever happens, historians will look back on 2008 as the year Latino voters influenced the outcome of the presidential race.

"More than half of the registered Latino voters in the country live in California and Texas," she said. "And they're flexing their muscles."