SAN ANTONIO -- With the Democratic presidential nomination on the line, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are competing all out for Hispanic votes in next week's pivotal Texas primary.
The race in this state is a dead heat, polls show, and even former President Bill Clinton says his wife must win to keep her hopes alive. Clinton campaign officials acknowledge that she needs heavy backing from Latinos, expected to cast more than one in three Democratic ballots.
Obama doesn't need to dominate the Hispanic vote in the March 4 primary, but he has to chip away at Clinton's support. There are indications he is doing that, though the state's Hispanic voters are still more familiar with Clinton.
"Once you make contact with Texas Latinos, it's very hard to move them, particularly when they can't distinguish policy differences between the candidates," said Henry Flores, a political scientist at St. Mary's University in San Antonio.
But "the more they see him, the better he may be able to do," added Flores, noting that Obama is outspending Clinton on TV ads in heavily Hispanic South Texas, which could erode her edge.
Tensions between black and brown Americans - in competition for jobs or minority power status, for example - have been mentioned as one of the reasons Obama has struggled to win Hispanic votes this year. Another factor, widely remarked upon by Latino analysts and ordinary voters, is the matriarchal nature of Hispanic culture, which may favor a female candidate.
Clinton is also helped by the history she and her husband have in Texas, dating from their experience in 1972 as organizers for George McGovern's presidential campaign. As the New York senator courts Hispanics, Clinton often refers to her work registering Latino voters that year.
"I lived here in San Antonio for three months," she said. "It's where I became addicted to Mexican food and mango ice cream."
Obama has followed her into the same areas, stopping Friday in the Rio Grande Valley, along the border with Mexico, one of the most heavily Hispanic regions in the U.S. The Illinois senator highlighted issues that he's using in his outreach to Latinos: making college more affordable, protecting homeowners against the subprime crisis and expanded health care coverage.
Largest minority
As important as the Hispanic vote will be March 4, it could be even more critical in the November election. The nation's largest minority group leans heavily Democratic, potentially putting states with fast-growing Hispanic populations, including New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, within the party's reach.
Matthew Dowd, a top strategist in President Bush's re-election campaign, said the 2008 Republican ticket will need 40 percent of the Hispanic vote nationally to win the presidency. Reaching that target will be "tough," he added, because of "the perception that's built up over the last couple of years that Republicans are anti-Hispanic."
If any Republican has a chance to rebuild Hispanic support, he added, it's Arizona Sen. John McCain, because "he hasn't been negative on immigrants" like others in his party.
A Clinton campaign official argued that she is better equipped to prevent McCain from winning back Latinos.
Garry Mauro, a top campaign official in the state and longtime friend of the Clintons, warned that Obama's failure to establish a relationship with Latinos would hurt the party in November.
"Are we really going to nominate somebody who's going to be Karl Rove's dream candidate?" Mauro said in an interview. Obama "has not been able to communicate with the Hispanic community."
Obama has acknowledged that he has work to do in that area. "Of course, I need to learn Spanish," he blurted at a campaign event in Los Angeles, while discussing the need for immigrants to learn English.
Clinton, who doesn't speak Spanish either, appears to be rerunning the campaign that helped her defeat Obama by 35 percentage points among Latinos in the California primary. Her campaign commercials make a forceful emotional appeal, calling her a "champion of the voiceless"; one of her Spanish-language TV ads refers to her as "our friend."
In Texas for Clinton
Some of the same Hispanic leaders who campaigned for her in California have made appearances in Texas, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Dolores Huerta, who helped Caesar Chavez form the United Farm Workers of America.
A Clinton campaign ad now airing in Texas, similar to ones that ran in California, features Chavez's grandson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., part of an effort to counter Obama's support from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who campaigned last week in Hispanic areas of Texas.
But Latinos are not monolithic, and campaign strategists and Hispanic scholars emphasize that Texas Hispanics are very different from those in California.
This state's Latinos, mainly Mexican-Americans, are much more acculturated and, as Angela Claiborne, a 36-year-old Latina from San Antonio put it, "more laid-back."
"They don't have to be led by leaders. Here they belong to the establishment," said Dowd, an Austin-based consultant who was a top strategist in California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2006 re-election campaign.
"As a former farm worker myself, I admire Dolores Huerta," said Obama supporter Laura Codina, 59, a retired San Antonio teacher who owns a gift shop. "However, there's still a lot of opportunity for all of us to grow. We're not about the past any more. Let's go to the future."
Obama is targeting the estimated 75 percent of Texas Hispanics younger than 40, and Tino Villarreal, a Clinton supporter, conceded that Obama's allure to younger voters is considerable.
"Especially here in Texas, we're quick to jump on bandwagons, and there are a lot of Latinos that Obama is getting that way," said the 27-year-old University of Texas business school student.
He pointed to campaign posters, created by Los Angeles artist Shepard Fairey, that Obama supporters were waving outside last week's debate site in Austin.
"Look at his posters. They're very revolutionary, very Che Guevara-like," he said of their social-realist style. For younger voters, "it's the popular thing to be with [Obama]. It's always popular to be a rebel."
paul.west@baltsun.com