by Frank James
It looks like one of the interesting subplots to watch will be how Sen. Barack Obama goes after the Latino vote in Texas before March 4 when that state holds its primary.
Obama has been criticized for not taking his campaign to Latinos the way he took it to whites in Iowa, New Hampshire or Washington State, for instance. And that failure has been credited in part with his relatively weak showing to date among Latino voters who Sen. Hillary Clinton has won with supermajorities.
An indication of what is to come in Texas comes at the end of a very informative piece by Ginger Thompson in today’s New York Times on how Obama has tried to navigate the always treacherous racial terrain in the current campaign.
Thompson writes:
While Mr. Obama has made great strides in appealing to white and black voters, his campaign has proved less effective in drawing Latino support. While a few experts point to longstanding rivalries between blacks and Hispanics over jobs and other opportunities, most faulted him as doing too little, too late.
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“Obama’s campaign failed to rise to the occasion,” scolded La Opinión, the leading Spanish-language newspaper in California, which had endorsed Mr. Obama.
Mr. Obama’s national field director, Cuauhtemoc Figueroa, vowed that Mr. Obama’s effort in Texas would be different.
“You are going to see Senator Obama campaign the way he did in Iowa,” Mr. Figueroa said. “We’re going to take him to little communities so that he’s not only going to touch voters with his words, he’s going to be able to reach out and physically touch them.”If you’re a student of American politics you have to love this.
It’s now the new conventional wisdom that March 4 is the do-or-die date for the Clinton campaign and that significant wins in Texas and Ohio, which also holds its primary on that day are essential to Clinton if she is to stop Obama’s February momentum.
That momentum will likely get an additional shove today as a result of the Potomac Primaries featuring the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, jurisdictions in which Obama is expected to do quite well.
It’s also likely to get another boost on Feb. 19 if he wins Wisconsin which many think he will. And he shouldn’t any trouble winning the contest in his native Hawaii on the same day.
So it can’t be overstated how badly Clinton needs Texas. But Obama’s campaign now indicates it is going to go aggressively after Hispanic voters that the Clinton campaign has been able to count on up until now.
Clinton’s campaign obviously won’t sit back and let this happen without countering fiercely. That makes the fight for Texas look as if it could be as spirited as anything we’ve seen since Davy Crockett took on General Santa Anna Mexican army. It assures that the eyes of the nation will be on Texas.