There’s a picture in the March 25 issue of the New York Times  of staff Sgt. Juan Campos of McAllen. It’s a photo taken at the McAllen airport as Campos embarked on another trip to Iraq in serving his latest leg of duty overseas.

Campos’ 9-year-old stepson, Andre, is shown wearing the sergeant’s military cap with the three bars signifying his rank in the U.S. Army. His right arm around his stepson and his left arm holding his wife, Jamie, Campos has a rueful smile, and for good reason.

At the airport, Jamie Campos said she lost her usual steely resolove to stay strong in seeing her husband leave yet again.

“I cried and I have never ever cried before,” Ms. Campos told The Times. “It was just really, really weird. He knew and I kind of knew. It felt different. We both knew it was the last goodbye.”

Sadly, that prediction came true. On June 1, 2007, Sgt. Campos died at a San Antonio hospital from injuries received while serving his country in Iraq. At this, the five year anniversary of the wars in Iraq and Afganistan, it’s a sad marker to note that the Rio Grande Valley has lost 28 of its sons to these wars, with the 28th coming just this week with the loss of Spc. Joe Rubio of Mission. Rubio’s was one of four soldiers killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq on Sunday, bringing the U.S. death toll in Iraq to an even 4,000.

Each name, every soldier, belonged to a family, had a story to tell, and many sent dispatches home of the fears and hopes they face daily in Iraq.

“I don’t know how much more of this place i (sic) can take,” Campos wrote to his wife in a Dec. 12, 2006 letter published in The Times.  “i try to be hard and brave for my guys but i dont know how long i can keep that up you know.”

Campos was part of the surge to Iraq that has been much reported and analyzed. The sergeant and his men were sent deep into insurgent neighborhoods, The Times reported, where they patrolled on foot, cleared houses, and mingled with Iraqis. Just yesterday, (Monday), President Bush said all those who have died in this war did not die in vain, and that their sacrifices will eventually help to build a lasting peace. Let’s hope so.

It’s clear from his letters that Sgt. Campos, one of our own, a young man from McAllen, always knew he was in danger, but pressed on in the traditions of the finest service given by young men and women to their country.

“The life of an infantryman is never safe..how do I know, well I live it every day,” Campos wrote in his MySpace blog, as published in The Times. “I for one would like to make it home to my family one day. Pray for us and keep us in your thoughts…for an infantryman’s life is never safe.”

For every analysis on whether the surge is working, or which military and political strategies should be taken, we should always remember there are real people behind the numbers. There are young men like Juan Campos, who wrote their last goodbyes.

A touchstone of my South Texas youth was the church, as it is the case for many in this region of often deep faith.

But in my case it wasn’t the Catholic Church. I grew up Baptist, from the time I was about five to 15, a faithful Baptist was I, tagging along with my Mom and brothers to Sunday school and listening to the good reverend lay down the gospel every week. In the style and culture of where I grew up, the church I attended reflected my faith at that point, and my community as well.

My church was the Primera Iglesia Bautista,  a Rio Grande Valley church where the kids spoke mostly in English and all of the adults spoke in Spanish. Sunday school for the youth was delivered in English. The Rev’s weekly sermon was all Spanish, all of the time, no translations needed.  The kids understood every word of it while peeking glances at the wall clock, hoping the Rev. Rodriguez could finish in time before the Cowboys kicked off.

The church’s historical roots came a generation or two before mine when Mexican-American community leaders of their faith knew they needed their own church for their own people. Anglo Baptists had their church. The Mexican-Americans needed one of their own, knowing while the Anglos of that day wouldn’t exactly turn them away, they wouldn’t exactly welcome them either.  

So the Primeria Iglesia Bautistas of their day started up, mostly in the first half of the 20th Century as the Valley became a Mexican-American beacon for immigrants from the south and north and west, (with my mother’s family coming here right after World War II to escape the harshness of West Texas cultural views, among other things).

 These churches became ingrained in our communities, in our neighborhoods, in our families. As a kid, I looked at the elders of my little Baptist church as surrogate mothers, fathers and grandparents. My youthful peers and I carried absolute respect for them, whether it was la senora Perez or el hermano Ramos, they looked out for us, gave us a pat on the head or a warm embrace. It was unthinkable to show any grain of disrespect to them.

Same went for the preacher. I recall him being on the young side for having such responsiblities and bringing spirtual guidance over adults that were often a generation older than he was, but he made up for it in firmness and certitude. The Rev. Rodriguez could bring it on the pulpit. Often starting in gentle tones, his sermons would rise to a crescendo with an open Bible to his hand, yelling out the gospel and lashing out at sinners. There were more than a few times when I was sure his fierce eyes had caught mine, looking at the clock in seeing how close we were getting to the Cowboy game. Talk about serious guilt trips.

On more than a few occasions, the reverend’s words of passion would jolt me. It was fire and damnation stuff, the God is angry type of sermons that would make a kid wonder if he was headed for the fires of hell later in the week. I would bring this up to my mother now and then, wondering if maybe the preacher was laying it on too thick.

“That’s his job,” she would say. “He’s suppose to say those things to make us think.”

I thought back to my preacher with the recent flap about Barack Obama’s pastor. My Baptist pastor never lashed out at America the way Obama’s rev did, as has been shown endlessly on Fox News, so they can remind all of their conservative viewers just how scary it would be to have a black president. But my guy did say some pretty strong stuff in his own right. And in the hallways and corridors of my church, I didn’t always over hear the nicest of things from adults about the Anglos across town who were praising Jesus in a bigger and nicer church.

But we didn’t quit the church - and didn’t quit the preacher either. Like African-American churches, my iglesia bautista  served its purpose, bounding together faith with community, spirtuality with the culture of our families. Barack Obama wouldn’t disown his pastor or his church even if he vehemently disagreed with some of the things he heard. Same goes here. I would never disown the church of my youth or the reverend who would thunder things that to this day I find to be over the top. But it was my church, my community, my little slice of America.

“We’ve had pastors I haven’t agreed with, but I didn’t stop going to church,” said Deborah Parish, 57, of Fayetteville, N.C., in an interview with NBC after the Obama-pastor flap broke. “I’m not going for the pastor. I’m going for the soul.”

The Rev. Rodriguez looked out for my soul, and as he would say, condemn the sin and love the sinner.

Joaquin Tijerina, Official Chisme Blogger

Scattershooting while wondering what happened, after all, to the Brownsville sports complex?

I borrow generously in using the `scattershoooting’ line from Blackie Sherrod, a legendary Dallas sports columnist, who would often bring up an athlete from the distant past in wondering whatever had happened to said sports figure of long ago.

Same goes with the sports complex. You probably have to search back in the old memory backs to recall the sports complex. `Member? With a good degree of fanfare, city officials, especially city Commissioner Ricardo Longoria, hailed the location of where the complex would be built, believing somehow that a site which is  practically in Rancho Viejo would be the ideal spot. With today’s gas prices, it’ll cost a couple of Whatburgers, at least, to get way out on Merryman Road, where the long-awaited sports complex is supposedly going to be built.

I say supposedly because nothing appears to be happening out on Merryman when it comes to the sports complex. After getting a road built into the site, it’s all quiet on the far north Brownsville sports front, with jack rabbits offering more action than actual construction. What pray tell, as the Brits would say, is the holdup?

The money for the project was secured long, long ago, (two mayors ago), when voters approved dedicating a small portion of local sales tax revenues for the constructon of a fab sports complex. It would be replete with soccer fields, baseball fields, basketball courts, diamonds for little miss kickball action, and all sorts of other fine athletic endeavors to fill the lungs of our young people with the thrill of sports and competition. There was so much  money to be had, in fact, that wise heads at City Hall decided to hire an executive director to oversee development of the sports complex and related activities. To make sure a good job would be had, the wise heads coughed up a hefty salary to pay this person to make sure the dirt would fly.

And now, two presidential elections later, Brownsville is still waiting for the thing to get built. Meanwhile, in nearby Harlingen, just months after that city announced plans to build a sprawling soccer complex the by airport, that thing is going up faster than a carnvial getting ready for Charro Days. While Brownsville fiddles, Harlingen builds. Kids in Harlingen will be kicking around soccer balls before Brownsville clears the jack rabbits from the big, empty field by Merryman Road.

I checked with some of the hard-working reporter types in the local newsroom to ask what gives with the Bro-ville sports complex getting nowhere. Don’t know, they told me, saying it’s tough to get information out of City Hall these days when it comes to the sports complex to be built 15 miles north of town. Maybe it’s a design thing. Maybe it’s taking five years to get all of the bids in. Maybe it’s because Harlingen City Hall does a better job of making the trains run on time. Maybe they need to pay the executive director more money to get the project going.

Who knows. And then last week, Mayor Pat announces his latest plan of adventure, this one to sell a portion of the city-owned country club/golf course, and use part of the proceeds to buy land adjacent to the sports complex that has never been built. Mayor Pat sees a new 18-hole golf course by the sports complex that has never been built, saying it could all be a one-stop sports center.

How exciting. On the flip side: Brownsville may get another bridge before it gets the sports complex built. Oh well, there will be plenty of tournaments to be had at Harlingen’s new soccer/sports complex, and it’s not very far at all from Merryman Road.

I don’t know about you, but it’s clear to me who the real winners were in the Texas primary.

It’s the Lucios, of course, Eddie Jr., and Eddie III, the father and son, the state senator and junior state rep, one for Clinton and the other for Obama. My gosh, did Eddie and Eddie milk that baby for all it was worth, or what? I’m talking the whole generational split that is all the rage in dissecting the Clinton-Obama race. You know, old people for Hillary and the younger generation for Barack.

There’s a lot of truth to that political equation as shown in the election results. In Texas, it was 60-40% for Obama among 18-to-29 year olds, and 62-37% for Clinton among voters who are 60 and above. With the national media focused on Texas as one of the two big political pieces on March 4, (the other being Ohio), they went a looking for story angles, and they found Eddie y Eddie to visualize perfectly the generational split between Clinton and Obama.

Once the national media discovered Eddie y Eddie, they couldn’t get enough. How bad did it get? The Lucios got major face time with Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News. Sweet! Yep, there were Eddie y Eddie chatting with Katie at an Austin Tex-Mex joint with chips and salsa and mugs of iced tea in front of them as they chuckled in good fun about how times had gotten a little rough lately amongst the Lucio clan, with the oldsters sticking with Hillary and the kids going ga-ga over Barack.

Then Eddie Three, 29, checked his BlackBerry scheduler and decided, yes, he had time to talk with Soledad O’Brian of CNN about how Pops is going for Hill the senior dama and he’s for Barack, the cool jazz player. The Lucios also somehow found time to talk to reporters with the Washington Post, New York Times, and got various mentions in larger Texas newspapers. Oh yea, they also did an interview with the PBS News Hour.

And all of that doesn’t include all of the Lucio coverage on the Internet, including this mention on the website of Hispanic Business magazine.

“Nobody was surpised to see veteran state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., on stage at Hillary Clinton’s first rally in South Texas. But the young Latino lawmaker standing next to Barack Obama at his first event here a few days did turn heads,” the online article says. “He was state representative Eddie Lucio III, the senator’s son.”

Yowser!

Now, here’s how I see the fallout of this whole two Eddie things as it relates to the Clinton-Obama tussle. The new Eddie has either made the most brilliant calculation in going with Obama early and soaking up big-time presidential face time if Barack is elected president, (hello Lincoln bedroom), or angry Clintonistas will never forgive him for dissing Hillary. Don’t underestimate the wrath of the Clintonistas. They will eat their young. Be careful, young Eddie. The day after Barack crashed Sombrero Festival, (with Eddie Three by his side, of course, two cool guys with white shirts and long ties), and The Herald splashed that spectacle on the front page. My gosh, the Clintonistas went nutso.

“How could could you do that???!!!!” the Clintonistas yelled into the ear pieces of phones attached to the ears of our editors.

I don’t know, let’s see, major presidential candidate comes to town, surprises and delights festival goers at Sombrero, yea, I think that’s news. I’m not sure, but I think it is. It’s kind of a faint memory now, but when Hillary came to town for a late night rally at UT-Brownsville, Chisme recalls reading something like 10 stories on The Herald’s website with blow-by-blow coverage that glorious day. You know, breathless updates such as “workmen are putting the final touches on the outdoor stage where Hillary Clinton will actually step to thrill her local supporters,” and “no final word yet on what refreshments will be served tonight at the Hillary rally, but sources tell us that it will likely be chicken salad over carne guisda.

The next day’s paper, of course, was pura Hillary on page 1. But that’s OK, we’re used to it. One day The Herald is an Obama rag, the next day it’s in the tank for Hillary. Believe me, the newsroom took it all in stride because when they’re under such stress the kind editor takes pity on their bruised souls and feeds them with endless pizzas and boxes of pollo from Church’s, not to mention the bags of pan dulce. The more you insult a newsroom, the better they eat. Sweet!

Anyway, I digress. I think Eddie Three will be fine even though his presidential candidate got clobbered on the local level because South Texas Mexican-Americans can be counted on to do three things: Buy Chevys, buy their washers at Sears, and vote for the Clintons. I’m not knocking it. Some forces are just too great to fight. Yea, the Clintonistas are mad even when their candidate wins, (why is Obama on the front page again!!!!!!), but young Eddie is one of our own. He’s Lucio’s kid, it will be fine, mijito will grow out of this Obama thing and support the Clintons just like the rest of us.

In the meantime, Eddie Three, what’s the deal with Katie Couric’s eyes? Is it just me, but since she left NBC to work at CBS, the color of her eyes look different. It’s freaking me out!

Joaquin Tijerina, Official Chisme Blogger y Columnista

We’re declaring Election Day a torta-free zone in Chisme Country.

That’s not to be confused with Clinton Country as declared repeatedly in recent weeks by the Clintonistas of South Texas. Hill and Bill pack plenty of popularity in the Rio Grande Valley, and my gosh it has been like Little Rock of the 1980s around here lately with the whole Clinton clan coming a calling, even daughter Chelsea joining Mom and Dad with Valley visits leading up to today’s primary.

The former Arkansas first family continued their up close and personal South Texas tour on Monday with Big Bill visiting Brownsville, McAllen, Laredo, and who knows where else. Maybe he stopped in for barbecue in Robstown. Hey, nice touch for the former president to do his stump speech at Dean Porter Park while standing on the bed of a Ford pickup. Very Texan, very LBJ-ish, and I’m guessing Big Bill was wearing cowboy boots to clinch the Lone Star effect.

We’ve gone really upscale in our politics lately, no? I mean, usually if it’s early March and election time our political diet is relegated to chewing over the latest Gilberto Hinojosa comments on why he hates Carlos Cascos so much. But this year? Hey, one day you could be chowing down with Barack at Sombrero Festival where Obama enjoyed the above-mentioned sandwich variety we’re not mentioning today. And then a couple of days later, just down the block from Washington Park where a possible future prez was discovering the T-sandwich, there was a former prez channeling LBJ at Dean Porter by a resaca.

I think the take away from all of this political hub-bub is that if Hillary somehow beats the long odds and ultimately snatches the Dem’s presidential nomination from Barack, she owes us. Big time. If not for the undying love y carino of RGV and South Texas types, Hillary would have no shot at carrying Texas. A win in this state is a must for Hillary. Without it, she will likely have to hang up her pant suits on an `08 presidential bid. The good  news for the Clintonistas is that Hill & Bill’s numbers in Ohio are on the uptick, and the numbers over the weekend in Texas look to be breaking in Billary’s favor.

Barack’s chilling with the locals at Sombrero Festival was cute and all, but a Houston Chronicle released over the weekend shows Hillary is still drawing about 67 percent support in South Texas. Man, raza, are y’all loyal or what? Monica-gate, lying to the country about it, getting impeached, y que? Bill was the greatest president, ever, dude! Hillary was the first lady, she’s smart, Bill will help her, she knows where the Valley is since she’s come down here to raise bukos of cash at $5 million mansions in north McAllen. You go Hill!

How important is that nearly 70 percent support in South Texas? The Chronicle polls shows Obama beating Clinton, the Hillary model, by around 60-40 in Houston and Dallas. Can you imagine the Clinton carnage if the RGV and So Tex weren’t so sweet on Bill y Hill? We won’t get into all of that boring stuff about how even if Hillary gets more primary votes than Barack in Texas he might still get more delegates than her because this state also does the caucus thing, and Obama is better organized for those meetings. Whatever.

 All I know is that if Hillary pulls this thing off, and has Bill in the corner office helping her run the country, we better get rewarded. Words are nice, Hill, but we’re in the solutions business, baby. Pick up that red phone. I’m talking a veteran’s hospital. Make it happen, Hillary, put those 35 years of experience to work, girl. I’m talking tearing down the border fence, if it’s up. We’ll call you at 3 a.m., if you want President Hillary, with this message: Tear down this wall, Mr. Chertoff! And the whole NAFTA-bashing thing. Lose it, forget it, start caring as much about us as the Rust Belt, labor union types the Dems always go ga-ga over. Feel our pain, too, Hill and Bill!

Enough of the emotions, guys, for today is the day we go out and vote to save the Clinton legacy just like we’re expected to, just like the polls say. And that funny story today about ex-Brownsville mayors, (Eddie, Nacho y Blanca), endorsing Obama? Oh yea, wow, that’s a game changer around here. And speaking of funny, hey George Lopez, the funnyman who is touting Obama, sorry bro, on election day we’re going to `member Hillary.

 Hillary is the dama that will beat Obama. It starts here, today, because after all, Latinos love name brands. We keep buying Kenmore washers at Sears and we keep voting for the Clintons. We got one more Clinton to go. Chelsea in 2020!

Joaquin Tijerina, Official Chisme Blogger Y Columnista

Hey, I said to my 80-something old mother, did you hear Barack Obama dropped in on Sombrero Festival, unannounced and mingled with the locals for half an hour?

“Pues si,” my mother said rather cooly, “Obama no conoce la gente Mexicana muy bien.”

But he sure has been trying, hasn’t he? The unsaid assumption in my mother’s simple statement is that Obama’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, knows South Texas and Latinos as well as her Senate constituents in upstate New York. I’m not buying that one, or the notion that because Clinton has come here plenty for lucrative fundraisers in ritzy north McAllen means she has a great personal connection with Rio Grande Valley locals.

Both candidates, of course, have self-serving reasons for their newfound interest in South Texas. The state’s primary is on tap for tomorrow, March 4, and Obama can either close out the Dem nomination by winning here and/or in Ohio, or Clinton can save her struggling presidential bid by doing the same.

In addition to each candidate visiting the Valley twice in recent weeks, and sending high-profile surrogates ranging from Hill’s hub, Bill, to JFK’s daughter, Carolina, (for Obama), we’ve witnessed the media blitz of each campaign. Both campaigns are flushed with cash, so we’ve seen more Obama and Clinton TV ads than those from local candidates. And it’s just not the generic national ads running everywhere. One Obama radio ad aired locally talks about the need for a veterans’ hospital in the Valley, the decades-long wish of many in our area.

If nothing else, all of the attention has been nice. Just from an entertainment standpoint, Obama’s impromptu drop-in at Sombrero Festival was quite remarkable. After speaking at a private gathering of religious leaders at UT-Brownsville, Obama was apparently driven around town some before coming to Washington Park in the heart of Brownsville, where the festival was being held.

Out pops the Dem presidential frontrunner for a 30-minute visit with the locals, munching on a torta and signing autographs and taking photos with young and old. It wasn’t a planned event. The only local media there was a contigent from The Brownsville Herald, which happened to be tailing Obama’s mini-caravan. So, given the scant media there, Obama wasn’t trying to milk media coverage by dropping in on the festival. Maybe he just felt like taking a brief break from the rigors of an intense campaign.

And so, a prez candidate who just a few days before was fending off Hillary barbs at a high-stakes debate in Cleveland, was now munching on a torta and shaking hands with pretty little Brownsville girls at Somberero Festival. What made the festival visit even more remarkable was that just days earlier the New York Times  had published a page 1 story which detailed concerns about Obama’s personal safety. The story reported that Obama is already getting presidential-level Secret Service protection because of safety concerns, and now here he was with nothing between him and a Sombrero Festival torta.

A half-hour visit may not do much to dent the Clinton name brand in South Texas, but still, it was a nice gesture on Obama’s part. Maybe my dear Mom is right in saying Obama doesn’t know Hispanics in Texas very well, but one poll out over the weekend, (Survey USA), shows Clinton’s lead among Texas Hispanics has shrunk from a 33 percent edge a week ago to a current 13 percent gap.

The Chisme guess is that Obama wins Texas, where his numbers have been climbing, but Clinton holds on to prevail in Ohio. A split decision means the race will go on, getting grubbier by the day and week because the Clintons won’t give up, no matter what.

But, alas, for at least half an hour Obama got a taste of Brownsville and a torta stuffed with cabbage and roast beef, with a sprinkling of salsa.

“It’s good,” Obama said taking a bite out of a sandwich prepared by a 17-year-old Pace High School student, who said he was shaking while preparing a torta for the palate of a man who might be this country’s next president.

Yes, senator, it’s good, it’s all good.

Barack Obama met with faith-based leaders in Brownsville on Friday, participating in what his campaign called a prayer meeting as part of the senator’s ongoing efforts to show America that a leading Democrat “gets it” about religion and politics.

I wonder if somewhere on his way to Brownsville the leading Dem candidate for president got a prayer of an idea about the importance of trade and commerce in our part of the world as it relates to business ties with Mexico. Obama and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, have been trying to out do each other over the last week in Ohio in their denunciations of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The two Dem candidates had a wonderful “me too” moment in their last debate, this one in Cleveland, where they both promised to pull this nation out of NAFTA, if necessary, unless Canada and Mexico meet U.S. demands to renegotiate the 15-year-old trade pact.  It remains a mystery as to why Obama and Clinton believe either Mexico or Canada would agree to any such negotiations, or even if a majority of Congress would go along with such a notion.

The three-nation trade agreement has become a handy scapegoat in Ohio for all that ails the state’s economy. With that state and Texas voting on March 4 in two criticial primaries that could decide the Democratic presidential race, Clinton and Obama are fallng over themselves in pandering to the protectionist leanings of Ohio.

Obama had this this gem the other day as reported by the Chicago Tribune.

“In Youngstown, Ohio, I’ve talked to workers who have seen their plants shipped overseas as a consequence of a bad trade deal like NAFTA, literally seeing equipment unbolted from the floors of factories and shipped to China,” Obama said.

Uh, senator, NAFTA involves the U.S., Mexico and Canada. How exactly is NAFTA to blame for the loss of jobs to China? In reality, according to one economist at Cleveland State University, NAFTA is directly responsible for less than 10 percent of the manufacturing jobs Ohio has lost since 2000. The reminder of the job losses are due to the general globalization of industries, the greater efficiencies sparked by the relentless march of improving technologies, and some bad business strategies on the part of some U.S. companies.

“It’s easy to blame the bogeyman (NAFTA), rather than the failed business strategies of Ford, GM, or Chrysler,” said Ned Hill, an economist at Cleveland State, in an story published last week by The Christian Science Monitor.

Here’s getting to the heart of this issue as stated so well in a recent USA Today editorial: “The reality is that NAFTA has relatively little to do with either the overall job losses or job gains. China is a far larger force…as has been the unprecedented and sweeping gains in worker productivity that have allowed U.S. companies to churn out more goods with fewer people.”

There’s lot more. How about the 25 million jobs that have been added to the U.S. economy since NAFTA’s passage? Or the fact that the U.S. unemployment rate has declined from 6.7 percent when NAFTA took effect to today’s 4.9 percent rate. There’s also the matter of trade between Mexico and the U.S. growing from $81 billion to $232 billion over the first 10 years of the trade pact’s existence.

And here’s something you won’t hear from Obama or Clinton. USA Today reports that the supposedly NAFTA-ravaged Ohio has seen a net gain of 900,000 jobs since the trade pact took effect, with new jobs in finance, professional services and health care more than making up for losses in manufacturing.

NAFTA has also helped to save U.S. jobs, according to John Engler, president fo the National Association of Manufacturers. Englier told the Wall Street Journal last week that under NAFTA many U.S. firms “found they could be more globally competitive by putting some manufacturing in Mexico or Canada while retaining high-end production in the U.S.” The bottom line result: “Such flexibility may have saved thousands of U.S. jobs from going abroad,” the Journal reports.

Even for all of the doom and gloom coming from Obama and Clinton about NAFTA and trade in general, data compiled by a Harvard economist shows that the average U.S. blue-collar worker’s wages, when adjusted for inflation, have risen by 11 percent since NAFTA passed.

“Instead of driving pay scales down, it (NAFTA),  appears to have pulled them up,” wrote Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune.

Another Obama gem on trade came when he said in Ohio last week that NAFTA “hasn’t put food on the table” of Ohio families. That’s debatable, but greater volumes of trade and commerce under NAFTA have surely put plenty of food on the tables of South Texas families, not to mention helped to push up household income levels in our area.

Democrats on the national level are still locked into old political scripts in which their party is tied to traditional constituencies in the Rust Belt, ignoring the growth and vitality of states in the Sun Belt and the Southwest. This helps to explain why the Dems have strugged so much in this wide section of America. Obama and Clinton are mouthing more of the same old, same old on economic and trade matters, putting the Rust Belt and the demands of fading labor unions over the emergence of the Southwest and the possibilities of a new day in America.

On matters of trade, Obama ought to follow his promise to tell Americans not what they want to hear, but what they need to hear. That’s what he did when he was running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois in 2004, when “he told Illinois farmers that the U.S. benefits from exports under the World Trade Organization and NAFTA, and he recommended that the U.S. go after more deals like it,” the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

“As an exporting state,” Obama said back then, “Illinois would be hurt by a trade war sparked by tariffs,” which would be “particularly devastating to our agricultural economy.”

Somewhere on the road to Ohio, Obama and her rival Hillary, (whose husband Bill pushed NAFTA through Congress as president), lost their way on trade, and became the same old Democrats, saying the same old things, and promising the same old results, to paraphrase a Barack chant.

Maybe if he is elected president, Obama will not only find religion at meetings of faith, but also get a prayer of an idea how more trade and commerce benefits America.

Joaquin Tijerina, Official Chisme Columnist & Blogger

Steve Nash, the peerless point guard of the Phoenix Suns, offers up a saucy take on the need for basketball balance between fundamental play and the flamboyance of high-flying players.

“People say they want the league, (NBA), to have more (funadmental play), but if they’re going to choose one, they’re going to go with the badass dunks,” Nash recently told Sports Illustrated.

It reminds me, in a way, of your average American who whines about the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to overseas factories and the corporations who ship those jobs to foreign locations. Greedy corporations, they say, robbing Americans of jobs while paying foreigners much lower wages and fewer benefits.

Then, later in the day, those same Americans are shopping at Wal-Mart, buying manufactured products at the lower prices that U.S. consumers demand and expect, which in good part, are made possible by manufaturing products in other countries. In other words, many Americans say they want manufacturing jobs kept here, (fundamental play), but then hurry off to the world’s biggest discounter to buy products at the lowest prices to save money, (the slam dunk).

“We want clean air, clear water, good living conditions, the best health care in the world,” said Steve Dobbins, the president of a North Carolina-based company that supplies thread, yarn and textile finishing to clothing makers. “Yet we, (U.S. consumers), aren’t willing to pay for anything manufactured under those conditions.”

Here’s what Dobbins is saying: Many U.S. consumers say they want America’s manufacturing base protected and restored, but don’t want to pay the higher prices it will take to provide the American worker with the pay and benefits he or she believes are entitlements to employment here. The proof: 97 percent of the U.S. population lives within 25 miles of a Wal-Mart as Americans clamor for the low product prices that the world’s largest retailer provides.

That statistic and the Dobbins comment are cited in the book, The Wal-Mart Effect, which details how the retail giant has wrung the lowest prices possible from its suppliers, who are also squeezed by American consumers who need and want lower prices, even if it means manufacturing has to go elsewhere.

“The cost structure of operating manufacturing plants in the United States is just enormously out of sync with what (American) people want to pay. Dramatically,” said Barbara Lucas, a senior vice president for Black & Decker, as quoted in The Wal-Mart Effect.

All of this ties into the rather pathetic pandering that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are currently displaying in Ohio as they scurry for votes leading up to an important March 4 primary in the Midwest state. At Tuesday’s debate in Cleveland, both Democratic presidential candidates said they would pull the United States out of the North American Free Trade Agreement unless Canada and Mexico agreed to renegotiate the pact.

NAFTA, you see, is the chief culprit to blame for the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs since the pact was enacted in 1983. That’s right, folks, a nation, (Mexico), with an economy 1/20th the size of the U.S. economy is uniquely to blame for the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs in Ohio and other Rust Belt states. NAFTA has become such a handy scapegoat in Ohio that the New York Times  reports that the mere mention of the trade pact “provokes as much ire as the name Osama bin Laden.”

Ouch.

It’s quite handy to dump all U.S. manufacturing woes on little old NAFTA, but the long-standing trajectory of manufacturing in this country predates the passage of the trade pact. Jobs at steel plants in Pennsylvania were disappearing long before anyone thought up the concept of NAFTA, as were declines in U.S. auto plants as American consumers began to buy more Japanese and German cars because they preferred them over the crappy cars General Motors and Ford were making in the 1980s.

And isn’t it ironic that Honda and Toyota are opening new manufacturing plants in the U.S., (including one in San Antonio), even as Ford frantically tries to convince more of its workers to take buy-out packages as it moves to downscale manufacturing operations because, in part, it has not operated as efficiently and with the same competence as Japanese car makers.

I guess that’s NAFTA’s fault, too.

And isn’t it something that since 1993, the year NAFTA passed, that the U.S. economy has grown by 54 percent, and the national jobless rate has dropped from 6.9 percent to 4.9 percent today, not to mention that Canada and Mexico are now our first and second-largest export markets.

But, alas, every four years Democratic Party presidential candidates have to trudge through the Rust Belt, promising good Midwesterners who believe a good factory job is their birthright that they will work to bring back good times again. And, if they have to bash trade agreements, so be it, for it’s all part of the game, as is whining about the loss of manufacturing jobs while shopping for slam dunk prices at Wal-Mart.

Joaquin Tijerina, Official Chisme Blogger

  

The 71st version of Charro Days is sure to be as festive as ever with all of its traditions and pomp and ceremony on display in vivid colors and lively celebrations.

But this year will be different in this respect: Brownsville’s famous and most enduring celebration will lie under the national glare of a brand of American politics that disses the very essence of Charro Days, which is to revel in the cultural and historical ties between U.S. and Mexican border communities. The nativists and nationalists of the political right were on a roll a few years back, exploiting the 9/11 terrorist attack as the currency to push their views into the periphery of the American mainstream.

It worked well enough that those forces were able to ramrod a border fence bill into law, with a president and Texan who had long opposed such a thing folding up like a cheap tent in the face of the noisy right of his party. And so it is that when locals gather up next year to enjoy the 72nd edition of Charro Days that a troubling quandry may well exist. Festival goers may have to go through some sort of special access to gain entry through a border fence that will relegate the Charro’s sprawling carnival to the “Mexican side” of the wall.

“Nobody wants to go through an access to the carnival grounds across the border,” said Michael Puckett, the longtime executive director of Charrro Days. “The wall would really hurt Charro Days.”

The commencement of Charro Days this year dove tails with the intensity of interest in our region and community from the two major Democratic Party presidential candidates. Hillary Clinton has been to the Rio Grande Valley in successive February weeks, including a stop in Brownsville last week, and she dispatched her daughter, Chelsea, to this region over the weekend. Big Bill can’t be far behind in the run up to the crucial March 4 Texas primary.

Barack Obama, meanwhile, made his initial Valley visit last Friday, chatting with students at UT-Pan American in Edinburg before addressing a large outdoor crowd at the university. Clinton and Obama, in seeking favor from South Texans, were clear in their debate points last week at the University of Texas at Austin that they had problems with the construction of a border fence.

There’s this little problem with the opposition they expressed last week. Both Obama and Clinton voted in the fall of 2006 to build a border fence. It was no doubt a political calculation on their part as they fired up their presidential bids. Neither, I’m guessing, wanted to be seen as being weak on illegal immigration, so they both went against their natural political grains and voted for the construction of 370 miles of border fencing.

Now, with a Pew Hispanic Center poll showing that nearly 70 percent of Latinos oppose building additional fencing, Clinton and Obama are making like Texas border mayors in voicing their concerns about such a structure. So much so that on Monday morning, La Jefa herself, (that would be Hillary), issued a statement in response to a Sunday story that ran in The Brownsville Herald and El Nuevo Heraldo, saying the article, which detailed the cultural and economic impacts of the border fence, raised serious concerns.

“It is troubling to me that our country’s current border security plan threatens a South Texas tradition, (Charro Days), historically created to celebrate the sharing of cultures,” the Hillary Statement stated. “I believe we need to re-evaluate the border wall as it is currently being implemented.”

Esta bueno, Hill, thanks for the attention and sending the note of concern. Pero, here’s the thing, by the time you or Barack take office in January 2009, if either one of you can beat GOP bad boy John McCain, the fence is likely already going to be up. As comedian George Lopez would say, the fence is going up “right now- right now,” unless border leaders are successful in running out the clock in 2008 and convincing that pelon, Michael Chertoff of Homeland Security, to hold off a bit and work things out so a fourth of the UT-Brownsville doesn’t end up in Mexico.

Look, both Clinton and Obama are playing the panda-rama political game with us right now on the border fence. Where were they in late 2006 when we needed national political leaders of their type to stand up against the right-wing noise machine and say a border fence may work in some concentrated areas, but please don’t let it cut through the heart of American communities like Brownsville, Laredo, Eagle Pass and El Paso. Instead, they voted for the thing, quietly and with an eye toward the 2008 presidential election year cycle.

Well, 2008 is here, right now-right now, and with Charro Days firing up for its seventh decade, let’s enjoy this edition before the border fence goes up and we have to show our passports at a Border Patrol check station so we can be allowed entry into the carnival grounds on the Mexican side of the fence. Who could have known that eating sticky cotton candy and throwing little hoops at bottles could be so controversial?

Joaquin Tijerina, Official Chisme Blogger

Sitting a mere foot or two away from the eloquent challenger who has eclipsed her, Hillary Clinton reached back to her travels of the week to push forward policy points about health care and immigration.

Just the evening before her Austin debate with Barack Obama, Clinton made an impassioned plea for her candidacy at a boisterous Wednesday night rally at the University of Texas at Brownsville/Texas Southmost College. At the Austin debate, Clinton first spoke of a woman at the UT-Brownsville rally who had “pulled me aside” to speak of struggles to find adequate health care coverage. A few minutes later, she spoke of the lunacy of the federal government’s original border fence plan that would have put a portion of the UTB/TSC campus on the “Mexican” side of the fence.

It’s heady stuff for a mid-size U.S. community when a major presidential candidate mentions the city’s name twice in a nationally broadcast presidential debate. In fighting to keep her presidential bid alive, Clinton has made the South Texas rounds over the last week, with two stops in McAllen, one visit each to Brownsville, Robstown and then San Antonio, and then on to Laredo the morning of her Thursday debate with Obama. It is telling that other than traveling to Austin for the debate, Clinton has not ventured beyond South Texas in her Lone Star political travels leading up to the March 4 primary.

She surely knows that her struggling presidential bid depends heavily these days on a huge amount of support from Mexican-American voters in South Texas. Clinton’s husband, Bill, the former president, said this week while campaigning in Beaumont that his wife must win Texas on March 4, or face the likely inevitably of losing to Obama. It won’t happen for the Clintons without a strong South Texas showing.

But for all of the vaunted Clinton familiarity with the Rio Grande Valley and South Texas, how much of this vote will she actually get? Lots of it, to be sure, but not as much as was once thought, or so it seems to me. It would appear that the same sort of generational divide that has hurt Clinton nationally will take root here. Younger Mexican-Americans, say those between 18 and 35, are going to go for Obama in a major way. They have none of the historical ties and affections to the Clintons that hold sway with their elders. For younger South Texans, Bill Clinton is a guy who was president during their grade school and middle school years. Barack Obama is the now, a voice speaking to them.

“My wife and I support Hillary,” said Juan Ruiz, a retired 58-year-old firefighter who attended one of the Hillary rallies in McAllen. “But our kids are for Obama.”

Ruiz made those comments to the Chicago Tribune, one of the various national media species that has discovered the Valley and South Texas in search of the exotic Mexican-Americans they’ve heard so much about. One fact unearthed in all of the reporting is this: 40 percent of this state’s 8.5 million Hispanics are of the ages 18 to 40. In that Tribune article, one of the Valley’s Democratic Party gray beards, Juan Maldonado, the current Hidalgo County Demo chairman, spoke of days gone by.

“We are guilty to some degree in assuming that because the leadership leans one way, the rank-and-file are going to follow,” said Maldonado, whose roots in politics go back to the La Raza Unida days of the 1960s when young Mexican-Americans of his generation were making their mark in Texas politics. “But the old patron system where the boss would tell everyone how to vote, that’s gone.

“It’s obvious,” Maldonado went on to say, “that Obama is real attractive with a lot of the younger generation.”

So, for all of the breathless reporting on local TV about how all of the local Valley political officialdom is backing Hillary, here’s a simple push back: Who really cares? Surely, not the younger generation Maldonado speaks of. Congress people like Ruben Hinojosa and Solomon Ortiz and the local political types of their 50-plus age range are just talking to themselves when they yell on their microphones for Hillary.

On Friday morning, when Obama made his first Valley visit, bounding on stage at an outdoor rally at UT-Pan American in Edinburg, the kids went nuts. They got more than a glimpse of the future. Barack Obama represents the first wave of the sort of multi-racial candidate that will populate American politics for generations to come. Hillary put up a good fight, but it’s hard to fight a future that has arrived in the fierce urgency of the present, a candidate on the glide whose flight path is now beginning to cover South Texas.