Greater Houston holds more than a quarter of the total Texas delegates that Democratic contenders Clinton and Obama will be fighting over. Two forces, other than whatever magic the candidates themselves can bring, will shape the outcome--and no, one of them is not the Latino vote. The first shaping force is Houston herself, which is the second-most ethnically diverse city in the country. Only the five boroughs of New York have populations who have come from a larger number of different places around the world. The University of Houston is the most culturally diverse school in the nation.
This multiculturalism is immediately apparent at the Clinton Campaign Kickoff in Houston on Sunday afternoon. Although a Clinton field office has yet to open here, the local volunteers have already got going. Wisely, they have chosen a culturally neutral Kickoff venue, the front driveway of a union hall in an area of scrubbed city blocks (ready for "urban renewal") near the downtown Hilton (This is the Communications Workers' Union Hall--not that it matters-- because unions have never been powerful in Texas and will not matter here in the upcoming election.) In this no-man's land, however, swaying to canned music for Clinton are Pakistanis, Indians, Vietnamese, Chinese, Koreans, Malaysians, Latinos and Latinas, Hispanics from the Caribbean, Brazilians, Nigerians, Anglos and a few African-Americans. And these are just the folk I can place.
When the ubiquitous Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Houston, national co-chair of the HRC Campaign) says to the enthusiastic crowd, "You are a rainbow coalition," most of the people in the driveway don't know that Lee is quoting American history, but they are the real thing. Here is Clinton's strength in Houston/Harris County: prosperous middle class immigrants-turned-citizens, as well as prosperous Mexican-Americans, many of whose families have lived in Texas for generations. None of these folk are the poorer, lower middle class and/or old folk widely considered to be Clinton's base. But the Democrats among these Houston demographics are devoted to Hillary Clinton. Except for the Mexican-Americans, many of these folk have not been in the U.S. long enough to have a history with Bill Clinton. The former president is not in the picture; it's all about Hillary herself. Sheila Jackson Lee perfectly captures what these loyalists love about her: "She rolls up her sleeves and gets the job done."
Juan Diaz, a personable student from the University of Houston who is also the light-weight boxing champion of the world, talks sweetly about the need for "change" and the need for "vision," while his fellow Clintonites cradle in their arms his winning title belts, massive cigar band-shaped and tooled leather, gilded and bejeweled, which sparkle in the mid-afternoon sun.
There has been a population explosion in Harris County since the 2000 Census, which is the last complete study of its demographics. So the percentage of votes in the upcoming election from citizens who were not born in the U.S. is anybody's guess. It's an especial wild card because the Chairman of the Democratic Party in Harris County said at the County Kickoff on Saturday that he is expecting at least 230,000 voters on March 4th, an increase of almost 200,000 since the 2006 elections. The multiplicity of ethnicities encompasses Spanish-speakers, suggesting a truth about them in Texas: there is no monolithic Latino vote in the Lone Star State. As the Clinton Rally shows, the term Latino is a misnomer in Harris County, home to many Hispanics, like Cubans and Filipinos, who are not from Latin America. Moreover, even among the Latino population, there are different cultures and priorities and even different ways of speaking Spanish. Salvadorans don't always get along with Colombians, and so forth. Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton's lock on the Mexican-American vote per se, especially in the Rio Grande Valley, is just that--a lock--and likely it extends to urban Harris County. In this demographic, Bill Clinton is revered; his picture, next to that of the Virgin, hangs on the wall of many a Tex-Mex restaurant.
Perhaps Barack Obama can peel away some of the other Spanish-speaking vote in Greater Houston. Certainly, his campaign intends to try. At the Obama Kickoff the day before the Clinton Kickoff, Toni Guerrero, a young Latina, said that the plan among young Houston Latinos who favor Obama is to work on their parents until they "come over to the other side." Also, it's important to remember that, although Obama has started late in wooing Latinos, he has made some progress. He did better with Latinos in California than in Nevada. He did better than expected with Latinos in Arizona. He won the Latino vote in Connecticut. He carried Latinos in Illinois and in the Colorado Caucus. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume that Obama will chip away at that voter bloc Clinton is most counting on in Texas.
The downside to counting on the Latino vote, as clearly the Clinton Campaign does--or Hillary wouldn't be in El Paso instead of Waukesha--is that Tejanos may not turn out in California numbers. Even though 1 out of 5 registered voters in Texas has a Latino surname (asking ethnicity directly isn't permitted), Latino turnout, at least in Harris County, has historically been low. In state senate district no. 6, part of which is in Harris County (more on districting later), and where the population (as of the 2000 census) is 53.3% Spanish-speaking, in the 2006 gubernatorial election only 25.6% of the registered voters went to the polls. Therefore, the Hispanic vote was well under 20%. Furthermore, only Arizona has a worse record than Texas, among the fifty states, for the number of registered women voters who actually vote.
Last November a Houston Dem, a leader of a River Oaks Democratic Women's Club, told me that her group had been trying to wrest money from Howard Dean to study exactly why Texas women turn out to vote in such low numbers. She could only speculate, but she thought the answer was poverty. "There are just so many poor people, and especially poor women, in Harris County," she said. "And having overwhelming problems day-to-day makes voting a very low priority." Therefore, three of Clinton's staunchest groups of supporters--women, working class and Latinos--have historically not turned out well in Texas elections.
A further caution about the Latino vote in Texas is that the part of it outside the major urban areas--Austin, Dallas and Houston--will not count for as much even though it covers more geography. These less-delegate-rich counties are exactly where Hillary Clinton is campaigning right now--in El Paso, McAllen, Robstown and San Antonio--having chosen South Texas over Wisconsin. In a pattern that should be familiar to Californians, these parts of Texas, these voting districts, do not have as many delegates to award because delegate allocation is based on past voter turnout--specifically in Texas, the 2004 and 2006 elections as well as the district's percentage of its vote for Chris Bell, the Democrat who received the party endorsement for governor in '06. Districts that liked Bell's Democratic opponents Friedman and Strayhorn a little too much have been stripped a delegate and an alternate.
At the beginning of this piece, I wrote that two forces, other than the candidates themselves, will shape the outcome for Clinton and Obama in Houston. The second, unlike the potentially malleable minds of middle class immigrants-turned-citizens, is immutable. It is the byzantine, bizarre and bollixed Texas primary itself. Indeed Texas does not have a primary; it has a primary/caucus hybrid. On March 4th, Texas will award 126 delegates proportionally in each of 31 state senate districts. Districts with 4 delegates (the majority) will likely award 2 delegates each to Clinton and Obama. As we've seen before with proportional delegates, it's very hard for one candidate to sprint ahead. Therefore, late in the evening of the 4th, Clinton very well may declare victory in Texas, but it will not be the blow-out, clear-cut victory she needs. There is just no way to beat the system. Furthermore, there is that caucus, which starts the evening of the 4th as soon as the polls close. Texas chooses an additional 67 delegates through the caucus process, but these delegates are not awarded (and nobody knows who gets how many) until the state convention in June. This is much too late to shore up the "firewall" that Clinton has been counting on here.
Ironically, too late the Clinton camp may be mastering the caucus process at last. Even before the Houston Kickoff, the local Clintonites had already held one training session, not just on how to caucus but also on how to come out of caucus a delegate, and were soon to hold another. The Obama Campaign in Houston is only this week holding its first caucus training. There is no intrinsic reason Clinton supporters can't learn the art of caucus--especially in urban Texas, where so many of them, like in California, are take-charge, well-educated women. The Obama volunteers in Texas and their fans in the blogosphere are vaunting the Obama grassroots' caucus skills maybe a little too soon. Here in Texas they could be in for a surprise.
Tomorrow: The Obama Campaign Makes a Tactical Error in Houston, and Caucus Rustlers
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wmholt
I think the Republican Party "has a stranglehold on uninformed voters".
That's the broad picture.
A word of advice to the Obama & Clinton campaigns & their supporters... On who WON Texas?....
The process has two steps. First, folks vote. 126 delegates will be accorded proportionally via state senate district. Then, when polls close, they caucus in more than 1,000 precincts.
At the caucus, attendees chose the identity of the delegate and the presidential candidate that the delegate is supposed to represent. These delegates are sent to a "senatorial convention" a few weeks later, during which the final math is worked out and the actual delegate slate for the convention is chosen.
67 delegates will be chosen this way.
March 4th ....Let the spin begin!!!!
Mayhill, Thanks for some really great analytical and on-the-ground work here. It's refreshing to see something this balanced and fact-based -- the way Off the Bus was intended!
As for Hillary's campaign mastering the caucus, the earlier piece in OTB by Zack Exeley does an excellent job of covering Clinton's masterful victory in Nevada. The problem doesn't seem to be lack of know-how about caucuses; the problem seems to be that the overall strategy hasn't adequately leveraged that tactical knowledge very well (perhaps magnified by an unexpected dip in finances to support these rather expensive operations).
Damn, is Hillary or Barack coming to Dallas???? Houston is about a four hour drive for me. Can they come to D-town por favor??
A word of advice to the Obama & Clinton campaigns & their supporters... On who WON Texas?....
The process has two steps. First, folks vote. 126 delegates will be accorded proportionally via state senate district. Then, when polls close, they caucus in more than 1,000 precincts.
At the caucus, attendees chose the identity of the delegate and the presidential candidate that the delegate is supposed to represent. These delegates are sent to a "senatorial convention" a few weeks later, during which the final math is worked out and the actual delegate slate for the convention is chosen.
67 delegates will be chosen this way.
Dont count them chickens till they're hatched
What's the significance of the gay vote in Houston? Every gay I know is in love with Hillary.
The numbers are stacked against anyone who relies on the Latino vote to win delegates in Texas. Delegates are allocated to state senate districts based on prior voter turnout. Two heavily black districts (one each in Houston and Dallas) have 13 delegates. Latino districts in McAllen and Brownsville have only 7 because of lower turnout. Obama has so far carried the black vote by 80%; Clinton the Latino vote by 60%. In these 4 districts Obama could capture 14 of the 20 delegates.
The Senate Districts in East Texas also have relatively higher numbers of delegates. Most of the black population of Texas outside Dallas and Houston resides in East Texas. Obama is going to reap a lot of delegates in East Texas.
In the Baytown-Houston-Sugarland area, which is Metro-Houston, 36% of blacks, and only 21% of Latinos vote. Even though the Latino population is higher, the difference in turnout results in more black than Latino votes. This is not good for Hilliary in Houston.
A big unknown here is the impact Sheila Jackson-Lee will have on her Congressional District. Hilliary has got one powerhouse of an ally in Jackson-Lee.
So comparing these two ethnic groups, the forecast does not look to good for Hilliary.
While it is too early to tell, Hillary may be losing her grasp on women. Prior to the Potomic Primaries she carried women by 28 points, but by only 12 on that Tuesday. Too, Texas, unlike other big states, is only 50% female.
But the ethnic group that may well deliver Texas to Obama is the least noticed and most maligned in the Democratic Party--white men. Thus far Hillary has carried this group by only 4 points. Obama has carried them in 10 states, including California. He has carried them in two Southern states, Virginia and Georgia. The question is does the big break of white men to Obama in Virginia portend a similar break in Texas?
Hilliary may win the vote in Texas, but it is difficult to see her getting the 60% of the delegates she needs.
CLINTON WILL WIN TEXAS, OHIO, AND PENNSYLVANIA, BUT THE FORCES OF EVIL WILL UNDO HER WINS...WHO ARE THEY? The mainstream media. They will spin her wins into losses no matter what the actual outcome.
Obama will win Texas and Pennsylvania. By the time he wins PA however, he will have already had enough delegates for the nomination.
I've always thought that Texas was more Obama country than the MSM was giving it credit for, I predict Obama wins across the board. And for good measure beats Hillary among Mexican/Americans and most other minorities.
to Mayhill Fowler: this isn't a very good journalism as your facts are inaccurate and the logic flowed. An average wait for an immigrant to become a US citizen is 6.5-7 years. but first, they need to obtain permanent resident status. the wait for legal permanent resident status may take anywhere from 3 to 20 years. That's 10 yrs wait minimum -- assuming everything is done by the books. Which is almost never the case with Homeland Security bureaucracy and an average Joe.
Therefore, most of Houston's new citizens remember Bill Clinton's humping incident very well. And they remember that in 1996, President Clinton signed into law one of the harshest immigration acts (I call it anti-immigrations laws). And yeah -- the Welfare Reform Act, and let's not forget how popular NAFTA is Mexico.
What was your argument again? Oh, I see -- you argued that these freshly baked US citizens are too stupid to remember who kicked their ass. I wouldn't count on it.
What a joke. Just because Clinton enjoys an occasional Taco Bell run she some how is part of the Mexican community. Half the people she has as a background during her speech are probably illegal immigrants and won't vote anyway. Tell everyone there that there will be a I.d. check after the rally and everyman for them selves. VIVA OBAMA
I live in the hood in Houston. It's going to be Obama. You can put your fingers on the ground and feel it. Stop by Z&Gs and have some coffee.
Senator Clintons Vote to allow military action in Iraq produced these results for Houston..
To Date the DOD confirms a total of 3960 Dead US Troopers in Iraq & an additional 28770 maimed and injured US Troopers.
http://icasualties.org/oif/
Iraq Casualty List
TEXAS Injured 2760 DOD Confirmed Dead 364
City Houston DOD Deaths in Iraq
Sotelo Jr., Tomas Corporal 27-Jun-2003
Carballo, Adolf C. Specialist 10-Apr-2004
Johnson, John P. Specialist 22-Oct-2003
Moss, Keelan L. Sergeant 02-Nov-2003
Sandoval Jr., Leroy Private 1st Class 26-Mar-2004
Soriano, Armando Private 1st Class 01-Feb-2004
Houghton, Andrew R. Captain 09-Aug-2004
Weger, Michael S. Specialist 12-Oct-2004
Allton, Eric L. Captain 26-Sep-2004
Leon-Perez, Jesus A. Private 1st Class 24-Jan-2005
Gutierrez, Analaura Esparza Private 1st Class 01-Oct-2003
Kennedy, Brian Matthew Corporal 21-Mar-2003
Zapp, Thomas J. Lance Corporal 08-Nov-2004
Babcock IV, Howard E. Petty Officer 1st Class 13-Oct-2005
Larson Jr., Scott Quentin Specialist 05-Apr-2004
Moss Jr., Walter M. Technical Sergeant 30-Mar-2006
Sanchez, Virrueta A. Staff Sergeant 24-Jun-2006
Kimble, Dexter S. Staff Sergeant 26-Jan-2005
Richardson, William D. Staff Sergeant 30-Nov-2005
Gertson, Clinton R. Specialist 19-Feb-2005
Jerak, Ivica Master Sergeant 25-Aug-2005
Roark, Timothy J. Staff Sergeant 02-Oct-2005
Robertson, Michael T. Sergeant 25-Oct-2005
Pugh, Kenneth I. Staff Sergeant 17-Jul-2006
Rosales, Benjamin S. Corporal 04-Oct-2006
Leija, Hector Staff Sergeant 24-Jan-2007
Dunn, Terrence D. Staff Sergeant 02-Feb-2007
Jones III, Roy L. Private 1st Class 10-May-2007
Soto, Danny R. Sergeant 16-Jun-2007
Salinas, Eric D. Specialist 02-Aug-2007
Houston Edwards, William L. Private 1st Class 11-Aug-2007
Johnson, Rodney J. Specialist 04-Sep-2007
Fraser, David M. 1st Lieutenant 26-Nov-2006
Medlicott, Matthew S. Lance Corporal 25-Aug-2007
Garrison, Benjamin J. Specialist 27-Nov-2007
Ray, Jeremy E. 1st Lieutenant 20-Dec-2007
http://icasualties.org/oif/
So many people don't know shit about Texas or Latinos.
Since California Hispanics have broken 50/50 Obama/Clinton. Obama got half of the Hispanic vote in Connecticut, New Mexico, and Colorado on Super Tuesday. He also got most of the Hispanic vote in Illinois.
The Hispanic vote has consistently broken down generational lines. The average age of Hispanics in Texas is 27. In the nation it's 36.
Now, despite having a smaller Texas population, black voter turnout was almost equal to that of Latinos in the 2004 and 2000 primaries. Knowing this, do people really think Latinos are going to magically deliver Texas to Hillary Clinton, or is the reality far more enlightening/depressing? Hispanics will probably break for Obama.
How much did Hillary "loan" to her campaign, $5 million? How much do the Clintons have in their piggy bank, $20-60 million? Hillary...a woman of the people. Right.
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Posted February 13, 2008 | 01:30 AM (EST)