Hillary Clinton Courting Hispanic Vote In Texas

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is clearly focusing on Texas’ large Hispanic vote and figuring on that as a key to winning the state’s March 4 primary, if her schedule is any indication of campaign strategy.

On Tuesday, Clinton will visit the University of Texas at El Paso:

Democratic presidential candidate and former First Lady Hillary Clinton will be in El Paso on Tuesday, campaign officials said.

And her husband, President Bill Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea, will also visit El Paso sometime before March 4, U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso said Friday.

Reyes, who is the Southwest regional chairman for the Clinton campaign, said Hillary will visit El Paso by herself on Tuesday. The dates for when President Clinton and Chelsea will be here remain unset, but they too will come before the Texas primary election on March 4.

“We’re rolling out the red carpet for Sen. Clinton,” said Reyes, adding that it is unknown at what time and where she will speak but that the University of Texas at El Paso and the civic center are being considered.

Congressman Sylvestre Reyes mentioned this Saturday night at the El Paso Black Democrats annual awards banquet, as well (although it seemed many in the audience were Obama supporters).

Too, this evening, the McAllen Monitor was reporting that Clinton would open a campaign office in Pharr, but that story has since disappeared from the newspaper’s website, so it is unclear if that is still happening. Clinton will also reportedly visit the Rio Grande Valley and Corpus Christi next week, but I’ve yet to see details on those events.

The Dallas Morning News notes, though, that Hillary probably has the advantage with the Hispanic vote in Texas, and that Obama will have an uphill climb in courting Texas’ Latino vote:

In more than 30 years of political organizing in South Texas, and with four trips in the past 16 months, the Clintons could write chapter and verse about the Rio Grande Valley.

Barack Obama, who has never been south of San Antonio, is just opening the cover. And that very fact could help determine the outcome of Texas’ March 4 primary fight between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama.

“I’m thinking that the closest thing we’ve ever had to a Hispanic president is Bill Clinton, and we certainly appreciate that he’s been there for us,” said Billy Leo, mayor of La Joya, Texas, and a political touchstone. “We don’t know Obama.”

Historically in Democratic primaries, Latinos make up about 25 percent of Texas voters. But turnout in this year’s primaries has broken records. In California, the percentage of Hispanics almost doubled on Super Tuesday, and they voted 2-to-1 for Mrs. Clinton.

Whether Mr. Obama can mitigate the simpatico feelings between Latinos and the Clintons in Texas is a large concern for his time-challenged campaign. The Clintons will rely on surrogates trusted by Hispanic voters – including Henry Cisneros, former housing secretary and San Antonio mayor – and their record on issues of top concern to Hispanics, such as education.

One thing that I believe is worth noting about the Hispanic vote in Texas, too, is that the war is an issue of importance to this particular constituency. Not that it isn’t important to other constituencies, but if you look at a list of war casualties from Texas, you’ll see a lot of Hispanic surnames. Too, it’s a fact documented by the Pew Research Center that, quite simply, Hispanics are dying in Iraq in great numbers:

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, while Latinos make up 9.5 percent of the actively enlisted forces, they are over-represented in the categories that get the most dangerous assignments — infantry, gun crews and seamanship — and make up over 17.5 percent of the front lines.

These worries have been exacerbated during the recent conflict in Iraq. As of Aug. 28, Department of Defense (DOD) statistics show a casualty rate of more than 13 percent for people of Hispanic background serving in Iraq.

Interesting.

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