Just a couple of months ago, political pundits in Texas were complaining about the state Legislature’s failure to move up the date of the primary from March 4 to Feb. 5. Some were writing off the importance the state could have in deciding who the nominees will be if it did not join other large states voting on Super Tuesday. You’d hear things like “Texas is going to be irrelevant in the political process.”
But as it turns out, in this unique primary season -- which has been anything but predictable -- Texas will end up holding the mother of all primaries.
With Sen. John McCain so close to clinching the Republican nomination, all eyes are on the Democratic horse race that has political observers -- not to mention the candidates themselves -- biting their nails, and on Texas voters, who could very well decide who will be the nominee. Or should I say Tejano voters.
Never has the Latino vote been so crucial to the presidential race, and never have Tejano voters been more desirable. Hispanics represent almost 25 percent of the electorate in Texas and are expected to be 50 percent of the turnout. So it’s no wonder that on Feb. 12, the night Barack Obama was celebrating victories in all three Potomac primaries, Hillary Clinton was in Texas getting flowers from a little boy dressed in a Charro outfit.
If she is to make a comeback as the leading contender in the Democratic field, Sen. Clinton has got to keep the approximately six out of 10 Latinos who have supported her, and if Obama wants to solidify his narrow lead, he has to attract the undecided Latinos and try to steal some of Clinton’s loyal followers.
How are they going to accomplish that? Lydia Camarillo of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project said that the key to winning the Latino vote in Texas is understanding that Tejanos do not want “the wall.” Life at the Texan border is different from life in the rest of the country, she said: “We cross the border to shop, to eat, to visit our family.” Tejanos do not want to be divided.
In essence, Camarillo claimed, to win the hearts and votes of Latinos in Texas, Clinton and Obama need to be against the wall being built on the Mexican border to try to keep undocumented immigrants away. That means they would have to explain why they voted for it in the first place and present a detailed plan for what they will do to stop it from being built.
Rodolfo Rosales, associate professor of political science at the University of Texas in San Antonio, agrees. “Texas has the highest percentage of Mexicans in the country,” he said. “Some of them have been there for generations. Not just the ones who crossed the border, but the ones that the border crossed them.”
There are high expectations for the debate in Austin on Feb. 21, presented on CNN and Univision. “The candidates should seize the opportunity to be specific about their proposals. They cannot just throw out flowery statements about change and new leadership,” said Rosales.
The professor said that besides immigration reform and the border wall, the candidates need to address two other issues important to Texans: The first is the age-old problem of unequal school funding. “Some of the school districts in our state are among the poorest in the country,” he said. The other is the depressed wages in the state’s labor-intensive economy.
In English or Spanish, at border towns or big metropolises, in Tex-Mex restaurants or Salvadoran pupuserias, the Democratic candidates are going to have to make sure that what they say and how they say it are going address the needs of Latino Texans before they get the very coveted Tejano vote on March 4 and possibly the Democratic presidential nomination.

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(Maria Elena Salinas is the author of “I AM MY FATHER’S DAUGHTER: LIVING A LIFE WITHOUT SECRETS.” Reach her at www
.mariaesalinas.com)
© 2008 by Maria Elena Salinas
Distributed by King Features Syndicate