Generational divide among Hispanic Democrats

McALLEN, Texas — The scene outside an early-voting station here this week looked encouraging enough for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at first: a few dozen of her supporters in this loyal Hispanic stronghold waving Clinton placards, with nary a Barack Obama sign in sight.

But the warning signals for her campaign were clear once those supporters started talking.

"My wife and I support Hillary," said Juan Ruiz, 58, a retired firefighter. "But our kids are for Obama."

Nearly every other parent in the group with voting-age children said the same thing.

The generational divide runs like a hidden fault line beneath territory the Clinton campaign had long regarded as solid, and it worries the old-guard local politicians who have dutifully lined up behind Clinton because of her decades-long ties to the predominantly Hispanic south Texas region.

"It's obvious that Obama is real attractive with a lot of the younger generation and even some of the older ones," said Juan Maldonado, chairman of the Hidalgo County Democratic Party. "We are guilty to some degree in assuming that because the leadership leans one way, the rank and file are going to follow. But the old patron system, where the boss would tell everybody how to vote, that's gone."

If Clinton is to win the March 4 Texas primary — a victory that seems even more crucial now if she is to halt Obama's accelerating momentum after his victories Tuesday in Wisconsin and Hawaii — her advisers acknowledge that she must capture most of the state's critical Hispanic voters, who could comprise up to half of the voters in the state's Democratic primary.

Yet demographics, dynamics and the peculiarities of the party's primary process are all working against Clinton's need to win not only the state's popular vote but also the lion's share of Texas' 228 Democratic delegates.

For one thing, about 40 percent the state's 8.5 million Hispanic residents are between 18 and 40 — a group Obama has been consistently winning.

"This is a younger population that is newly registered at a time when the Clintons weren't in office," said state Rep. Rafael Anchia, a Dallas Democrat. "We think that's fertile ground for Sen. Obama to make inroads."

Even though registered Hispanic voters outnumber African-American voters in Texas by a ratio of 2 to 1, their historically lower election turnout means their influence is diluted. As a result, urban and predominantly black districts in and around Houston, Dallas and Austin — places where Obama is likely to do especially well — are more delegate-rich than their mostly Hispanic counterparts along the Mexico border.

"If you're telling me we won't get as many delegates as we get popular votes, that's probably true," said Garry Mauro, a former state land commissioner and Clinton Texas campaign leader. "But Hispanics have shown a tendency to overwhelmingly support Hillary Clinton, and our polls in Texas are showing the same thing."

Yet Clinton campaign officials, mindful that other recent Texas polls show Obama pulling even with the New York senator, are clearly concerned about shoring up her support in south Texas. Clinton journeyed to the region last week for a rally, and she was scheduled to come back again Wednesday evening, to McAllen and Brownsville, for two more.

Part of Clinton's problem in south Texas, Maldonado said, is that she took the region for granted, assuming that her past popularity and history of visits here, beginning with a drive to register Hispanic voters back in 1972 and other trips during Bill Clinton's presidency, would be enough.

"The Clinton campaign assumed that the nomination would be over and done with by now," Maldonado said. "Last year, they just came through here for private fundraisers, picked up the money bag and left. They should have spent another hour, that's all they needed, to go where the real people were. But they missed that chance. Now they are having to catch up."

Obama's campaign is looking to exploit the opening. Sen. Edward Kennedy campaigned in nearby Edinburg and Laredo on Wednesday. And Obama will make his first campaign visit to south Texas on Friday, with appearances expected in Edinburg and Corpus Christi.