Clinton backers predict that her connections here will negate the Obama efforts. The local Democratic Party chairman in Brownsville, Gilbert Hinojosa, is backing Clinton and said she could win 70% of the vote here -- simply because voters "remember eight years of Bill Clinton."
Hinojosa said he was impressed by the turnout at the opening of Obama's Brownsville office, but he added: "We'll do something better." Clinton is scheduled to come after the Tuesday primaries in Hawaii and Wisconsin.
For Obama, campaigning to be the first black president, making big gains among Latinos would be a major achievement. In California, Clinton defeated him among Latinos by almost 2 to 1.
Texas advantages
Obama aides argue that they enjoy more advantages in Texas, where Latinos and blacks have a history of building political coalitions. Former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, an African American who is advising the Obama campaign, won about 70% of the Latino vote in his mayoral runs. He also carried the heavily Latino Rio Grande Valley as a U.S. Senate candidate in 2002, though he lost that race.
Moreover, Obama strategists say Texas Latinos tend to be more politically independent than those in other states, having voted in large numbers for George W. Bush in his races for governor and president. This suggests they may feel comfortable severing their historical ties to the Clinton camp, the Obama aides say.
Obama has one other advantage in Texas: The state's complicated system of voting, involving both a primary and a caucus, awards convention delegates based in part on past voter turnout in state Senate districts. Because blacks in cities such as Houston and Dallas have voted at a higher rate than Latinos in the valley -- and blacks are expected to go heavily for Obama -- those black voters will have outsized influence over the final delegate count.
On some of the most important points of policy, little distinguishes Obama and Clinton. Both voted in favor of funding a fence along the Mexican border -- an unpopular stance in Brownsville, a community that boasts close commercial and social ties with Matamoros, its Mexican sister city directly across the border.
Obama and Clinton also share a similar voting record on trade, an issue of high importance to many voters in Ohio. Both opposed the Central American Free Trade Agreement and supported a trade deal with Oman, a country on the Arabian peninsula. They also both say trade deals should require countries to protect worker rights and the environment.
