If you’re part of the Hillary Clinton political machine, there has to be one thought running through the collective brain - thank goodness Mexicans found their way to California eons ago.

On Super Tuesday, the descendants of those Mexicanos voted for Hillary - big time - and kept her head above the Obama wave. Barack Obama took 13 states on Super Tuesday compared to Clinton’s eight, but one of those eight was California. Had Hill lost California, it would have been adios to Bill and Hill’s excellent adventure to give America a second Clinton presidency.

Billary in good part owes its political survival to the astonishing Latino support that Clinton Inc., garnered in California. Billary took 69 percent of the Latino vote in Kali-for-nay, as Gov. Arnold would say, with Barack managing to get a puny 29 percent. Good try Oprah in making a splashy campaign stop for your man Barack on the eve of the Calfornia primary, pero, not even the mighty Oprah can shake Mexican-Americans from the Clintons.

Bad news for the Clintons: The next series of primaries and caucuses in February, (Virginia, Maryland, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Washington state), are places where not many Latinos live, so Hillary will have to look elsewhere to see who can bail her out. With that in mind, the Clintonistas need Texas in a major way when our state’s primary rolls around on March 4. Good news there, of course, for Hill and Bill since we have lots of Mexicans in these parts, with Hispanics making up roughly 25 percent of the Democratic primary electorate.

And there’s no doubt Lone Star Mex-Americans will be there for Hillary. It’s just a matter of how big they’ll back her up. In California, they went ga-ga for Hill. Nearly 30 percent of the California Demo electorate on Super Tuesday was made up of Latinos. In the 2004 Demo primary, California Latinos made up only 16 percent of the state’s Demo electorate.

You think Tejano Dems won’t turn out in droves to save their girl Hill from Barack? Are you kidding? Of course, they will. Mex-Americans in Texas love the Clintons, especially Bill. I’m not sure why there’s such a depth of amor for Bill and Hill, but it’s there, so no use trying to fight it, not even Oprah and her book club could put a dent in this love affair.

So, is it only admiration for the Clintons that explains the ties between Mex-Americans and Billary, or is there something to the theory that some Mex-Americans just can’t bring themselves to vote for a major presidential candidate who happens to be African-American? I think it’s both, more of the first, but some of the later. Sad but true, boys and girls, in putting it like it is.

So get ready, Rio Grande Valley, here comes the Clintons. They need you with Barack closing in on putting an end to their dream of a Clinton Restoration. As Hillary put it at a California rally, “Si se pueda.”

OK, she needs to work on her Spanish, but that’s fine. Hill is our girl. Winter, spring, summer or fall, Hillary, when you call, we’ll come running. You’ve got a friend, oh yes you do, as you’ll find out on March 4.   

- Joaquin Tijerina, Chisme Blogger

Today’s issue of the New York Times, (Feb. 5),  has a wide array of articles about the Super Tuesday round of national voting, including a story with this headline: “Issues Start Rush to Citizenship by Hispanics.”

The story details the crush of new Latino voters in key states voting today - nearly all of which is inspired by the urgency these voters feel in making their voices heard amid the chatter about the contentious immigration issue. After hearing the endless put downs from the political right and their talking head allies on conservative radio, hundreds of thousands of Hispanics have responded by applying for citizenship.

The NY Times article put it this way: “Latinos are gearing up for Tuesday’s voting with an eye toward making Hispanics a decisive voting bloc nationwide in November.”

It would appear this growing group of voters is already making a difference in the primary voting season. Take last week’s Republican primary in Florida where John McCain and Mitty Romney were essentially even among white voters, (34% to 33%, advantage Mitty), but Latinos favored McCain by a whopping 54% to 14% margin, giving him the state, and a huge win in his likely path to the GOP nomination.

McCain, you will recall, has been ripped by the political right and the radio talking heads for his previous support of an immigration bill that would have given some illegal immigrants a long path to possible citizenship. And so, ironically, it may well be that McCain’s more centrist views on immigration could have been the tipping point in his critical win in Florida in attracting the voters that put him over the top.

In the Democratic dream matchup  between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Latinos are sure to play a key role as well in the Super Tuesday voting. The 24 states voting on Super Tuesday include nearly 60 percent of the nation’s Hispanic electorate, with states like California, Arizona, New Mexico and New York participating in what amounts to a national primary.

That bodes well for Clinton, who is benefitting from the leftover appeal her husband, former President Bill, has among Hispanics. One poll has Billary leading Obama among Hispanics in California by a huge margin, 52% to 19%, although the challenger to the Clinton Machine is doing much better in Arizona, where another poll has him over Billary among Hispanics by a 53% to 37% margin.

All trends show Hispanics being a growth industry for Democrats, with 57% of registered Hispanic voters identifying themselves as Demos as compared to 23% for the Republicans. It was only four years ago that George W. Bush pulled over 40% of the Hispanic vote in the 2004 presidential election, but that was before right-wing Republicans went bonkers on the immigration issue.

“The hard-line rhetoric on immigration is turning off all Latinos,” said Lionel Sosa, a Republican advertising executive in San Antonio who has handled Hispanic outreach for the presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan and both President Bushes. “When people talk about building a wall and sending those Mexicans back, it comes off as anti-Latino. We say: `You’re talking about my family, and I don’t like it.’ ”

Sosa, in making those comments to the NY Times, is speaking to the truth in the numbers seen in the rush to citzenship. For the fiscal year ending October 2007, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received 1.4 million applications for naturalization from green card holders, the vast majority of whom are Latino. The Wall Street Journal reports that those 1.4 million applications are nearly double the volume received the previous fiscal year.

All of this points to bad news for the Republican Party, the talk show nation, and all the angry gueritos who have Hispanic-phobia and see the Balkanization of America when a new panaderia pops up in some little town in Iowa.

Ni modo, gang, America has never been a stagnant place. Ya es hora, as the Hispanic media campaign for citizenship put it, and the hour has arrived where Latino voters may play a big role in shaping the 2008 presidential race. 

 - Joaquin Tijerina, Chisme Blogger

Hillary Clinton’s lead in California is evaporating by the day, with her once mighty edge in the kingpin of states in tomorrow’s Super Tuesday vote now down to a statistical dead heat with Barack Obama.

Just a week ago, Clinton was leading Obama by double figures in just about every reputable poll. Now, one of those polls, a Zogby-Reuters-C Span poll, has Obama up by six points, and tomorrow’s vote can’t come soon enough for Clinton.

With just about every age and voting group trending Obama’s way, Clinton does have one group her campaign is desperately hoping can save her in California. It’s Latino voters, which make up about a quarter of that state’s electorate, and it amounts to Hillary’s firewall in California, along with older white women. Obama appears to be swamping Clinton just about everywhere else.

For reasons I don’t entirely understand, other than Clinton and her husband are Democratic Party icons, the Clintons have historically enjoyed a wide swath of popularity with Hispanics, especially Mexican-Americans. But, really, what special affinity does Hillary Clinton have for Hispanics? It’s just another group of voters she can pretend to like so she can rule over them. The glow of support Hillary has felt from Hispanics is nearly all emanating from the popularity of her husband, Bill, with Latinos.

If Hillary pulls off a narrow win in California over Obama in tomorrow’s voting, it will likely be Latinos that carry her over the finish line. For months, national polls have shown Clinton with a two-to-one edge over Obama among Hispanics, but the challenger and his campaign are now actively campaigning in California Latino communities and neighborhoods, racking up some big endorsements from leaders in that community which may prove helpful. And then, on Saturday, La Opinion, the largest Spanish daily in Los Angeles, endorsed Obama, even though the newspaper has historically stayed neutral in primaries.

As it did in South Carolina, the Clinton campaign and some of its surrogates are playing the race card in California, suggesting that Latinos have historically not supported African-American candidates, (i.e. Obama in this case). This is the way The American Prospect put it recently in an online article: “Hillary Clinton pollster Sergio Bendixen, an expert on the Latino electorate, made headlines during the run-up to the Nevada (caucus) vote when he suggested Obama’s deficit could be attributed to Latino antipathy toward African-Americans.”

Is that true or is it simply the matter of Hispanics being more familiar with the Clinton name brand in the Democratic Party? If there is a slice of truth to supposed hostilities between blacks and Hispanics in urban areas like LA, Clinton and her campaign are working to exploit it, as she did during the Demo’s most recent debate when Hillary said she could understand why some African-Americans are frustrated by immigrants supposedly taking jobs from blacks in some job sectors.

Obama flatly rejected that notion in the debate, saying losses in the black community started long before more immigrants came to the U.S., adding that more recent immigrants were being used as scapegoats by some in this country who have economic worries.

Here’s what will happen after Tuesday’s big votes in California and over 20 other states. The next big prizes will be primary votes in Texas and Ohio in early March, meaning get ready to see the Barack and Hillary show in the Rio Grande Valley and other parts of  the state which are key to the Democratic primary vote.

Texas in its history has never had a high-profile African-American candidate. So, will voters in the predominately Democratic and Hispanic Rio Grande Valley give Obama a look, or have Demos in this area long ago drank the Clinton Kool-Aid, and will support Hill and Bill no matter what?

With the closeness of the Obama-Clinton race we’ll find out. The Si Se Puede line is sure to get a good workout in the weeks ahead.