Union officials say that a push from younger members helped persuade the Service Employees International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers to endorse Obama last week. Both unions plan to be active in the campaign, making personal contact with their membership on behalf of Obama.
About 40% of the food union's members are younger than 30 years old, and their enthusiasm helped move the union out of neutrality and toward an endorsement, said union president Joe Hansen. "Barack Obama did something to our members and to our leadership," Hansen said.
In Texas, Obama is trying to take advantage of an emerging generational divide to bring more Latinos to his side.
Nowhere is that more pronounced than in Brownsville, where longtime state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. was an early endorser of Clinton and escorted her last week during a visit to the region. But Lucio's 29-year-old son, newly elected state Rep. Eddie Lucio III, is a top Obama organizer -- even though he grew up looking at family photos of his parents and grandparents with the Clintons.
"That was his generation . . . but this is my generation," said the younger Lucio. "This is the most exciting time for me ever other than my own campaign. Someday I can tell my grandkids that I worked on the Obama campaign, and they will be like, 'Wow.' "
One of two ads that Obama is airing in Latino radio markets in Texas is pitched explicitly at younger Latino voters. "Obama is talking to me," it says, "about the opportunity to go to college, and about ensuring my parents and grandparents have the healthcare they need. That's why I'm talking to others -- my parents, my uncles, and my friends" about supporting Obama.
Some local Obama backers say they have begun to see the Illinois senator, the son of an African father, as someone who can relate to the Latino experience.
'Kick the door off'
"I see more of myself in Barack than I do in Hillary," said Sergio Zarate, 46, who owns a chain of dry cleaning stores in the Rio Grande Valley and attended Saturday's party. "He's not just going to crack a glass ceiling. He can really kick the door off its hinges, and clear the way for all of us, even Hispanics."
Clinton has also begun running radio and TV advertisements in Spanish, and she made several appearances in the area last week.
