The Tipping Point in Texas

Newsweek Web Exclusive

Email To A Friend

Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.

SPONSORED BY

And this week she launched a TV ad aimed at Spanish-speaking Texans that calls Hillary "nuestra amiga." (our friend).

Josh Earnest, Obama's Texas spokesman, says the Clintons' deep roots in Texas will be a factor in the upcoming race. But the more people get to know Obama, he argues, the more they like him. "His chances in Texas depend on our ability to introduce Senator Obama and his background to black, white and Hispanic voters. Texans are not used to having such a big say in the presidential race. This year they clearly will." The Hispanic vote in Texas is very important, he says, and "we intend to spend a lot of time and resources competing for it."

Rene Martinez, a 61-year-old Dallas school administrator sporting a cream-colored cowboy hat, was one of the few Hispanic supporters at the Obama gathering in Dallas. His son Alexis, 26, originally turned him on to Obama, and his wife Beatrice pronounced that she was fed up with Bill and Hillary's "polarizing" campaign tactics. "We should be the old-guard Chicanos who go with Clinton, and we're not. The young people have really energized me, and they are mobilizing for Obama," Rene says.

Alexis, a 26-year-old commercial real estate broker, said he's been for Obama since the Illinois senator first appeared on the national political scene. "He's much more warm and open. He has so much more appeal to the younger generation, to my generation, because of the passion he puts forth. It's a changing of the guard." But his father put the challenge ahead succinctly: "Now the question is how do we capture that vote? How do we energize that young crowd to go into the barrios of Dallas?"

That effort has begun in earnest. The campaign has launched a Spanish-language radio advertisement, now running in eight Texas markets, that hypes Obama's decision to turn down a high-paying Wall Street job after college to work on the south side of Chicago among those left behind after plant closings. And the campaign has hired Adrian Saenz, a Hispanic Texan on leave from his job as chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, to serve as its state director.

The task ahead is to energize the Latino vote—without alienating Obama's base among African-Americans. Some worry that interethnic tensions stand in the way. Others find such talk disturbing. "Our shared experiences as minorities brings us together," said U.S. Rep. Charles Gonzalez, a Democrat who represents San Antonio in the House and who endorsed Obama on Monday. "We know what it's like to feel the sting of discrimination. The Latino understands that the day that you start citing race or ethnicity or gender for your vote is the day you give a basis for all those who once discriminated against us. It's not going to happen. Not in our community."

Gonzalez is a superdelegate, one of the Democratic Party leaders who could end up deciding the party's nomination if neither candidate wins a majority of the delegates pledged in the popular vote. He acknowledges that the Clintons have built a reservoir of good will among Hispanics in Texas. "They've been on the political scene for years," he says. But Gonzalez believes Obama is better positioned to pull in the votes of independents, and he likes the fact that his candidate is inspiring legions of voters to go to the polls for the first time. "I've got two great quarterbacks. One can win the game for me by three points, one by a touchdown. I'm very pragmatic, so I'm going for the one who can win by a touchdown."

« Prev Page

Member Comments

- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: dmb8265 @ 03/03/2008 12:58:40 PM

I AM AFRICAN AMERICAN BUT I AM ALSO SMART, BECAUSE HE IS BLACK DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR HIM THIS MAN HAS NO CLUE IN WHAT IS GOING ON!!! ALL HE TALKS ABOUT IS CHANGE - CHANGE WHAT????? ALL THOSE VOTES THAT HE IS GETTING IS FROM REPUBLICANS AND INDEPENDENTS, IN THE PRIMARY THEY WILL NEVER VOTE FOR HIM, I CANNOT BELIEVE PEOPLE OF COLOR IS SOO!! LISTEN UP HE WILL NEVER ME ELECTED, DUE TO HE HAS NO CLUE WHAT IS GOING ON!!!! HE HAS NEVER EVER VOTED FOR ANYTHING IN THE SENATE HE IS ALWAYS ABSENT, SO DID HE DO THE SAME THING IN CHICAGO SENATE!!!!!! ALSO 38% OF REGISTERED DEM VOTE FOR HIM ALL THE REST WAS INDEPENDENT, REPULICANS THAT DONT WANT CLINTON TO WIN!!!!! SO THINK WHEN NOV 09 COMES DO YOU THINK THEY ARE GOING TO GO IN THE VOTING BOOTH AND VOTE FOR HIM!!!! A VOTE FOR OBAMA IS A VOTE FOR MCCAIN TO GO TO THE WHITE HOUSE AND WE CANNOT LET ANOTHER REPUBLICAN GET IN THE WHITE HOUSE AGAIN, THEY WILL NEVER VOTE FOR OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT THEY ARE GOING TO VOTE FOR MCCAIN, I AM AFRICAN AMERICAN AND I SEE WHATS HAPPEN!!! NOT BECAUSE I LIKE HILLARY BUT THATS WHATS GOING ON WITH OBAMA SURGE ANYBODY CAN VOTE IN THIS ELECTIONS AND THEY ARE DURING TO KNOCK HILLARY OUT BECAUSE THEY NO OBAMA CANNONT WENT IN THE PRIMARY. WAKE UP!!!!
- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: dmb8265 @ 03/03/2008 12:49:11 PM

FIRST OF ALL, ALL THESE PEOPLE VOTING ARE INDEPENDENT, REPUBLICANS IN THE DEM RACE, THAT IS WHY OBAMA IS GETTING A LOT OF VOTES BUT IN REALITY WHEN THE PRIMARY'S COME UP THEY WILL NOT VOTE DEM TICKET THEY WILL VOTE REPBULICAN SHE IS LOVED BY INDEPENDENTS AND FOR NOW REPUBLICANS HILLARY IS GET OVER 50% OF THE DEM VOTES WHEN THE PRIMARYS COME HE WILL NEVER GET THOSE VOTES HE IS GETTING NOW HE IS A LOT OF BAGGAGES THAT WILL COME OUT AND HE HAS NO!!!!!! IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD - PEOPLE I AM AFRICAN AMERICAN AND I NO THEY DON'T WANT HILLARY BECAUSE THEY NO IN NOVEMBER SHE CAN WIN!!!!OBAMA WILL NEVER WIN!!! THEY ONLY REASON HE HAS WON ALL THE STATES IS BECAUSE OF PEOPLE BREAKING PARTY LINES AS OF NOW IN THE PRIMARYS THEY ARE NOT GOING TO VOTE FOR HIM. THAT IS WHEY I CANNOT BELIEVE HOW THE DEM WOULD LET INDEPENDENTS, REPUBLICANS VOTE IN THIS ELECTION THAT IS WHAT IS HURTING CLINTON NOT THE DEM BASE. PEOPLE WAKE UP!!! THIS MAN IS PHONY AND HIS WIFE SAYS I AM PROUD FOR THE FIRST TIME TO BE AMERICAN WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSE TO MEAN, THATS IS WHY AS A AFRICAN AMERICAN I AM TURNED OFF BY THE OBAMA CAMP, IF HE WIN I WILL VOTE FOR JOHN MCCAIN, HE IS
NOT READY TO LEAD THIS COUNTRY HE HAS NEVER VOTES ON ANYTHING IN THE SENATE, HE IS ALWAYS ABSENT, HE DONT NO HOW HE WOULD HAVE VOTED IF HE WAS IN THE SENATE, PEOPLE WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE THIS IS A BLACK MAN AND YOU DONT NO WHATS IN HIS CLOSET.
- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: Dr.Lamot @ 02/26/2008 6:28:44 PM

Comment: Comment: Hillary Clinton Goofs Again
A Commentary by Dick Morris

Who was it that defined neurosis as repeating the same mistake again and again, and expecting a better outcome each time? That is really what the Clinton campaign is doing in its post-Chesapeake primary strategy. Now Hillary defines Obama as the candidate who makes speeches, while she is the one who provides answers and solutions.

Why is Hillary embracing this new line? Its not that she has any great record of solutions or answers of which to boast, but rather that she wants to highlight Obama's lack of a legislative record. Once again, she and her campaign geniuses are making the same mistake they made when they decided to use the experience as their defining difference with Obama. Its not that she had much, but they sensed an opportunity to highlight that he had even less.
Of course experience not only didn't work. It backfired massively. By co-opting the experience tag, Hillary bought into the status quo and left Obama to be the agent of change. A candidacy that could have excited tens of millions of women, the first serious prospect of a female president, became merely a boring part of the status quo, shorn of its novelty.

Hillary's claim to be the solution-person won't work either for the same simple reason: She hasn't passed any...she hasn't walked the walk so now she cannot talk the talk.

As a first lady, Hillary's sole important legislative involvement came during the first two years of her husband's presidency when she sought to pass her ill-conceived health care reform, an effort that failed so miserably that it cost her party control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. Between 1995 to 1997, she was largely absent from the White House, traveling the world, promoting her best selling book and helping to raise funds. She never attended strategy meetings and her only intervention in the singular legislative achievements of Bill's administration welfare reform and the balanced budget deal was privately to urge a veto of the former and to oppose the latter because it provided for a cut in the capital gains tax. Hillary returned to the White House in 1998 to oversee the defense to the Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment attempt, but the Clinton administration essentially folded its legislative efforts during those years and hung on for dear life. No portfolio of accomplishments there...

Her only actual legislation included one bill to increase nurse recruitment, another to aid respite time for Alzheimer's care givers and another to expand veteran's health benefits, a paltry output for six years service.

In her second term, she has spent full-time campaigning for president and has the worst attendance record of the three senators now still in the presidential race.