SALINAS, CALIF. — The next showdown in the Democratic presidential contest may be in South Carolina on Saturday, but Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton showed her determination to look further down the campaign calendar Tuesday with a whirlwind visit to California's Salinas Valley and to a high school in Phoenix.
With polls showing Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, her chief rival, benefiting from the support of African American voters in South Carolina, Clinton's coast-to-coast excursion played to a different audience with whom she has held the upper hand -- Latinos.
The New York senator won Saturday's Nevada caucuses, besting Obama by 2 to 1 among Latinos. And a Field Poll released Tuesday showed her with an even bigger advantage -- 59% to 19% -- among Latinos likely to vote in the Feb. 5 California primary.
Clinton greeted an overflow crowd of more than 2,000 at the gymnasium of Hartnell College in this agricultural city, where she received the endorsement of the United Farm Workers of America.
Arturo Rodriguez, president of the union, told an audience that included a contingent of red-shirted farm workers from across California that the UFW's leadership had reached a "unanimous" decision to endorse Clinton.
"We know that Sen. Clinton . . . will ensure that Americans get health insurance throughout the United States," Rodriguez told the crowd. "She will ensure that the economic issues that face working families in America will be dealt with in her administration. She will repair the relationships with countries throughout the world."
When Clinton took the gymnasium stage, the crowd shouted greetings and chanted her name. During her speech and a brief question-and-answer session, Clinton hewed mainly to economic themes that have dominated the campaign in recent days.
The crowd greeted her most warmly when she talked about reforming education -- making preschool available to all children and scrapping President Bush's No Child Left Behind program to put more decision-making in the hands of teachers.
"I want education to be available to every single child in America in a way that gives you a chance to live up to your God-given potential," Clinton said.
That launched the crowd into the traditional farm workers union chant, "Si, se puede!" The candidate smiled broadly and basked in the moment before slightly botching her own "Si, se puede." ("Si, se pue-dah," she offered.) She added the translation, "That's right: 'Yes, we can!' "
