The day of the Wisconsin and Hawaii primaries, Barack Obama will already be in Texas, first in San Antonio and then in Houston. Since Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton have been down here on and off for over a week, clearly the Obama Campaign is feeling the pressure to get their man in-state. (Also, the Obama Campaign may be taking a page from the HRC playbook: the page that advises leave the state, in this case Wisconsin, well before a feared loss.) Obama will be holding one of his iconic rallies in Houston Tuesday night, at the Toyota Center (home of the Houston Rockets, crowd capacity of 19,000). Parts of the city are in a tizzy. On Sunday, it was impossible to access the Obama weblink from which a Houstonian could print out a ticket--demand was overwhelming the system.
A mega-rally that will bring out Obama believers? Remember New Hampshire. Remember the Oprah-Caroline-Maria-Michelle-Stevie Wonder-whopper two days before the California primary. Whipping up frenzy in the faithful can do only so much. Here are a few of the more humdrum things Barack Obama should do to garner votes in Houston:
1. Go straight to Daniel DiNardo and pay respects. Make sure the press follow. Talk about immigration. Stand on the diocesan steps for a photo--with or without DiNardo. Houston is enormously proud to have the first southern city Cardinal for U.S. Catholics.
2. After the Toyota Center (could be a grand and glorious waste of time), from now on go small. Joel Osteen fills the old Compaq Center with 16,000 people every Sunday. Houstonians are not going to be impressed by the size of crowds.
3. Next week spend a day here stepping through the doors of small businesses in several ethnic communities: Indian, Pakistani, Vietnamese and Korean for a start. Travel the length of Hillcroft Street. Then drive up to Pearland to the Sri Meenakshi Temple or to Sri Saumyakasi in Sugar Land to speak at the education centers.
4. Walk the Hispanic neighborhoods in "The Heights."
5. Hold a roundtable with students from the University of Houston.
6. Hold a roundtable with students at Bellaire High School. Visit Condit Lower School around the corner (or even better, a lower school, perhaps Parker, in another part of the city) and talk with teachers about the changes they would like to see in No Child Left Behind. Texas laid the groundwork for this mandate; there has been some success here, although adding merit pay to the system caused much bitterness and factionalism among Houston teachers last spring.
7. Don't make sweeping statements about the oil companies. Energy provides a lot of Houston jobs. Bone up on extended-reach wells and what various speakers had to say at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates 27th annual Houston conference last week. Know something about Brutus and Mars.
8. A substantive difference--one of the few--with Senator Clinton is on the subject of nuclear power. There's a battle going on right now over two new reactors for the South Texas Project near Bay City. Generally speaking, however, Texas, like Illinois, has looked favorably upon nuclear. This is a Texas opportunity for a knowledgeable candidate.
9. Houston is one of the country's top medical centers, drawing patients from all over the world, especially the wealthy from South America, the Middle East and Canada. Yet Texas has one of the largest uninsured populations among the fifty states. Pay a visit to one of the city's clinics that serve Hispanic women and tell them what universal health care might do for them.
10. None of the candidates still standing has an immigration policy that entirely suits Tejanos. And most Texans ridicule the border fence. One of the strengths of an Obama presidency is supposed to be listening to the American people, without necessarily agreeing with our views. So listen to what Mexican-Americans, newly arrived and those whose families have been here for generations, have to say about immigration.
Even though the Houston Chronicle did not agree with some of your comments, Senator Obama, to the editorial board, nevertheless you got the paper's endorsement. You don't have to agree with Houstonians; just listen to the many and differing points of view they have to offer.