Primary colors: The Hispanic-black equation

LAS VEGAS — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has eaten beef tacos in East Los Angeles and sat on the living-room couch of a working-class family in a largely Hispanic neighborhood here for 30 televised minutes.

At a rally of the culinary-workers union in the shadows of the Strip here the other night, Sen. Barack Obama pumped his fist in the air and chanted with the crowd, "Sí, se puede, sí, se puede, sí, se puede!" or, "Yes, we can!"

As the Democratic candidates have moved from courting the overwhelmingly white voters of Iowa and New Hampshire to an expanse of 25 contests facing them in the next few weeks, they confront an electorate that is increasingly Hispanic, in Nevada, California and New York.

Meanwhile, Clinton and Obama on Monday both tried to tamp down a racially tinged war of words touched off after she told an interviewer in New Hampshire that "[Martin Luther] King's dream became a reality when Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964" — which some saw as criticism of Obama for invoking King in a speech before the New Hampshire primary.

As both candidates aggressively court Hispanic voters, Obama confronts a history of often uneasy and competitive relations between blacks and Hispanics, particularly as they have jockeyed for influence in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

"Many Latinos are not ready for a person of color," Natasha Carrillo, 20, of East Los Angeles, said. "I don't think many Latinos will vote for Obama. There's always been tension in the black and Latino communities. There's still that strong ethnic division. I helped organize citizenship drives, and those who I've talked to support Clinton."

Javier Perez, 30, a former Marine, said older Hispanics like his grandmother tended to resist more the notion of supporting an African-American, a trend that he said was changing with younger Hispanics.

On her first trip after her victory in New Hampshire, Clinton flew here for a tour escorted by prominent Hispanic leaders, including Henry Cisneros, a former secretary of housing and urban development, on what was billed the "Juntos con Hillary, una Vida Mejor" (Together with Hillary, a Better Life) tour.

From here, she flew to heavily Mexican-American East Los Angeles to eat at King Taco, ordered in Spanish by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has emerged as an important supporter.

In Chicago, Obama was successful in rallying Hispanics to his side and bridging differences between them and black voters. In 2004, Hispanics accounted for 16 percent of the vote in the California primary, 11 percent in New York, 17 percent in Arizona and 9 percent in Florida.

Some observers believe a split brewing among Nevada unions could provide an opening for Obama to make a greater appeal to Hispanic voters, a demographic group thought to more heavily favor Clinton.

A lawsuit filed Friday against the Nevada Democratic Party by the teachers union seeks to throw out recent rules changes allowing only hotels and casinos organized by the state's most powerful union, the Culinary Workers Union of Nevada, as caucus sites. That could prove extremely helpful to Obama, who won the union's endorsement last week.

The education union has not endorsed a candidate, but some top leaders are backing Clinton, who has avoided taking sides on the issue so as not to appear to be supporting disenfranchising members of a heavily Hispanic union.

The cooks, food servers, bus persons, bartenders and porters — many Hispanics — will play a central role in awarding a victory that could provide momentum heading into the Jan. 26 Democratic primary in South Carolina.

Political alliances and rivalries between blacks and Latinos frequently shift back and forth around the country. Villaraigosa lost his first effort to become mayor, in 2001, to a white councilman, James Hahn, who won 80 percent of the black vote. In a rematch in 2005, Villaraigosa was elected with 50 percent of the black vote.

Villaraigosa said he did not think that Clinton's strength among Hispanics was a byproduct of tensions between the two groups.

"From my vantage point," he said Monday, "the strength that Hillary Clinton enjoys among Latinos has everything to do with her track record and her longstanding relationship with that community. I think there are tensions among all groups."

As he campaigned in northern Nevada, Obama acknowledged the challenges he is facing.

"I think it's important for us to get my record known before the Latino community," Obama told reporters. "My history is excellent with Latino supporters back in Illinois, because they knew my record.

"Nationally, people don't know that record quite as well. So it's very important for me to communicate that, to advertise on Spanish-speaking television, to make clear my commitments."

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who just dropped his own campaign to become the first Latino president, said that the rivalry between the two groups had eased and that Obama could transcend many of the differences as he approached Feb. 5, "what I call the Hispanic primary day."

He said he might endorse a candidate before Feb. 5, an endorsement that would clearly influence some Hispanics.

In California, Obama has picked up support among Latino lawmakers, some of whom supported Richardson. But bringing on rank-and-file voters will be difficult, said the state Senate majority leader, Gloria Romero, a Democrat, of East Los Angeles.

"Do we have a long way to go?" Romero asked. "Absolutely. I think there are some tensions on questions of immigration and jobs. But I believe that we have moved forward in a way that the community will embrace an African-American president."

She said the solution to overcoming the tensions was talking about economic problems that afflict middle- and lower-class blacks and Hispanics like the mortgage crisis, an issue that first Clinton and now Obama have been raising with increasing frequency.

"I don't think eating tacos" is effective, she said with a flick at Clinton. "We need to address what unites us. The key is not to raise the wedge issue."

Obama, some party officials and scholars suggested, may face additional difficulty if Hispanic women respond to Clinton's increasingly strong appeal for support based on gender.

"The Hispanic community is very family-oriented, and we respect our mothers," said Ruben Kihuen, an influential Democratic assemblyman from Las Vegas who supported Clinton. "A lot of middle-aged women see her as a mother, a head of the household, and they can identify with this. Especially when they see her daughter, Chelsea, with her."

Information from the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times is included in this report.