Hillary’s Lone Star Connections

By Karie Meltzer

AUSTIN - When the two most talked about people in Texas aren’t Texans, they’d better be pretty important. And at least till the votes are tallied in Tuesday’s Democratic primary they both still are. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama are stirring the kind of statewide frenzy that Texas Democrats haven’t seen in a generation. Equally important, this week’s contest (and the one in Ohio too) may prove a make-or-break moment for the Clinton campaign. Coming off a string of primary losses across the country, the senator from New York is strenuously playing up what she bills as a unique set of Texas connections in hopes of wooing local blues to her cause.

Will it work?

While the verdict will be in soon enough, Clinton does have a Lone Star pedigree that makes Sen. Obama look like a greenhorn in the eyes of at least some Texas voters. In 1972, Clinton traveled to South Texas, where she helped register voters for the Nixon-McGovern presidential race that year. She also campaigned there for husband Bill Clinton during his 1992 and 1996 presidential bids. Together, the Clintons enjoy support in East Texas that traces back to their early political days as governor and first lady of Arkansas. Not surprisingly, Clinton and her campaign staffers frequently tout these connections at Texas campaign events – including the Feb. 25 debate at the University of Texas at Austin. When Clinton spoke to Texas Democrats at the debate watch party, she reminisced about nights at Scholz Garten and even her first Jerry Jeff Walker concert.

For some voters, that kind of experience clearly counts. “Obama has no ties to Texas,” said Sheri Stevenson, a San Antonio accountant who staked out a front row spot for the Texas Democrats debate watch party. In her eyes, Clinton is clearly different. “I saw her when she campaigned for her husband in San Antonio,” she said, who added she’d be proud to shake both candidates’ hands, but wasn’t shy in expressing her support for Clinton.

Others are more ambivalent. “I don’t see vast differences between them,” said Tina Cambell, 50, an Austin-area insurance agent, and therefore Clinton’s “strong connection with Texas” is one of the main issues driving her support, along with what she feels are Clinton’s more finely articulated positions on education and health care. In Cambell’s view, Clinton’s ties with two grand dames of Texas politics, Gov. Ann Richards and Rep. Barbara Jordan, don't hurt either.

Playing the history card may be of limited voter appeal, however – especially this year. “There are a lot of new voters who haven’t been engaged with politics before, so [Clinton’s] relationship with Ann Richards or Barbara Jordan is only going to help with the base,” said Sherri Greenberg, a former Texas state representative who teaches at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. “It won’t resonate with new voters.”

“As a practical matter, [Clinton] has no more roots in Texas than she does in other states,” said Daron Shaw, professor of government at UT. What she does have are problems rooted in a communication style that focuses too much on the issues while Obama rouses voters with his personal stories and more grassroots approach to campaigning.

“Some of her problems extend beyond herself,” Shaw said. “[Obama’s] a phenomenon and has all that momentum.”

Other political observers point out that even though Clinton is consistent when it comes to talking about her policy experience, if not her Texas experience, she has a hard time distinguishing her positions from Obama’s. According to Jack Martin, immigration is a hot issue in Texas, but Clinton, Obama and even Senator John McCain all voted for the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007. “There’s very little difference, if any, between the immigration policies of even Presidents Bush and [Bill] Clinton,” said Martin, special projects director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “And now, there’s not much to distinguish Hillary from Barak Obama or John McCain.”

That said, some true-blue Texans read between the policy lines and see a difference. Take Austin native Marco Martinez. Hoisting a Clinton campaign poster more than twice his size at Bill Clinton’s speech at UT on Feb. 27, Martinez, 32, said he printed Clinton’s health care plan from her campaign site as long ago as last year. “It was 12 pages – I went to Obama’s site and there were four paragraphs,” he said. Martinez feels that the Clinton campaign hasn’t capitalized on the candidate’s Texas ties as much as it could, and now he worries it is getting too late. “I think it’s been more reserved,” he said. “They need to get the word out more because it’s not getting out.”

The question this time around seems to be: Will enough voters be willing to listen?