Give it up for Hillary! I thought her speech this morning in McAllen at a festive rally was quite good as Hillary speeches go. The Rio Grande Valley in general adores the Clintons and the crowd at the McAllen Civic Center was dishing out plenty of love for their candidate.

I’m guessing Sen. Clinton was feeling it because it seemed as if she spoke with more emotion and sincerity than is normally the case. It didn’t seem that Hillary refocused or honed her standard stump speech much from ones she has given for some weeks now. The pundits keep saying she needs to retool her message to catch up with the galloping Barack Obama, but it seemed like the usual lines today in McAllen, but they were said with a bit more oompfh.

Clinton did throw in a couple of Valley-oriented lines in her stumper today. She promised to bring a veterans’ hospital to the region, which is such a shop-worn pledge at this point that the locals just clap without thinking because we know that, yea, of course they have to promise the vets a hospital. It’s like a prez candidate going to south Florida and promising to boot Castro out of power.

The senator also promised to push immigration reform that would bring humanity for the undocumented, (but no drivers’ licenses, por favor), as well as added border security. Good, we’re all for that, so those are popular points to tout here. She went back in time a bit to recall her days as a young political organizer who registered voters in South Texas, (including McAllen, she said), for the 1972 presidential campaign of George McGovern. In fact, you know those “35 years of experience” Hillary is always promoting, well, one of those places where it all started was right here.

Anyway, watching the Hillary rally on TV was good fun, although you have to wonder how much structural reinforcement those event platforms need, what we all of the local politicos crammed like tamales in a cacerola to get on stage with the presidential candidate. Hey, I want to give a shout out to my Tio Polo the JP who somehow got a space up there behind Hilaria. I got so excited that I thought of calling my dear tio on his cell to confirm it was really him, but I refrained because it would be embarrasing, after all, to have someone lip read JP Polo saying, “Si, mijo, it’s me,” while Hillary talked about bringing universial health care to America.  

And how about Valley congressman Ruben Hinojosa, who shared mike time with Clinton. Rep. Ruben got so caught up in the moment that when he announced Hillary would be back in the Valley next week for an even bigger rally at the McAllen football stadium, he blurted out: “And we’re going to have 50,000 people there!”

What, we have the Rose Bowl here now? You know, back in the 1990s when I went to a huge Weslaco-Donna football game at the McAllen stadium and all the fans were crammed in there like tamales in a cacerola, I recall the attendance being announced at 15,000. Looks Rep. Ruben was only off by 35,000 or so in anticipating the McAllen stadium crowd next week for Hilaria.

It’s all in good fun. We await for The Obama to come to our neck of the mesquite woods by month’s end. Tiene que. Barack has his two slices of bread in the toaster warming up, but Hillary isn’t toast just yet, and won’t be unless Obama can get to around 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in Texas in the March 4 primary, and that ain’t happening unless his campaign tries bery, bery hard in the Balley.

Maybe Barack can do a rally at Brownsville’s Sams Stadium. I bet we can cram 50,000 people into that joint.

Joaquin Tijerina, Chisme Blogger

It’s crunch time, Rio Grande Valley, and Hillary Clinton is down to a few life lines to keep her presidential campaign from being Obama-ized.

With Barack Obama winning big over the weekend in primaries and caucuses in Washington (state), Nebraska, Louisiana and Maine, the Clinton campaign is gasping for air, even more so with Obama expected to score substantial victories Tuesday in primaries in Maryland and Virginia.

One of Hillary’s firewalls - and one she absolutely has to have - is deep South Texas, specifically the Valley. Both campaigns know it, with an Obama campaign memo obtained by Bloomberg news indicating that his campaign plans to work actively in the congressional district of U.S. Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, a Mercedes-based Democrat. The Obama memo indicates that his campaign expects Clinton to get upwards of 75 percent of the vote in Hinojosa’s Valley-based district, a level of support Hillary must surely achieve to score the kind of win she needs in Texas.

To no one’s surprise, Clinton’s campaign was quick to plan a Valley stop for Hillary with the Texas primary coming up on March 4. Clinton is scheduled to have a campaign rally on Wednesday at UT-Pan American, although local political run-run has the event being moved to the new civic center in McAllen to accomodate a larger crowd and more parking capacity. Meanwhile, political gossip also has Obama’s people scouting for a Valley event for their man, with Brownsville as the possible spot so the Illinois senator can outline his views on immigration.

Obama is sure to be on a major roll by March 4 as he keeps winning states and Hillary’s campaign begins to go into panic mode. The tonic for Clinton would be big wins on March 4, not only in Texas, but in Ohio as well. If she wins both of the big states by good margins, Clinton once again recaliberates the race. Si no, and Obama wins both, or even one of those two big states, it will be tough for the Clinton Machine to get to ultimate victory.

It’s something to hear the cable news talking heads who usually refer to Hispanics only when talking about illegal immigration to now be trumpeting the importance of Latinos in the Democratic race. Granted, they know nothing about Latinos anywhere, most certainly here in South Texas, so don’t expect to hear worthy insights in their yak-yaks about the Texas primary. It is clear that the Mexican-American vote in Texas will be contested in the next few weeks like never before when it comes to presidential politics.

A desperate Clinton campaign needs a huge turnout and support from Valley voters to carry Texas. Obama needs to avoid the sort of rout he suffered in California, where he drew only about 25 percent of the Hispanic vote in losing that state by a large margin.

 In Arizona, New Mexico, New Jersey and his home state of Illinois, Obama was able to get 40 percent or more of the Hispanic vote. Can he do the same in Texas? If he can’t, the Clinton campaign likely scores a big enough win in Texas to keep her campaign alive long enough to trudge on.

Get the mariachi bands lined up. Get a stage big enough to accomodate all of the Valley politicians and hangers-on who want to be been seen standing behind Clinton with their Hillary! signs. The Clinton Machine is coming back to the Valley, and this time it’s not for the usual private shing dig at Alonzo Cantu’s mega-mansion in north McAllen where you have to pay $5,000 to eat sushi and foofy finger food with Hillary. The Clintons have come down a bunch of times to raise cash at Alonzo’s, so we regular people never see Bill and Hill as they’re whisked in an out of Cantu’s gated neighorhood, where one house occupies the equivalent of an average-sized city block.

No, this time, raza, Hillary needs your votes, really, really bad. So, this time she’s going to pretend to like you, the common, arroz con pollo people who don’t live in big houses in north McAllen. She’ll put on that plastic smile and clap robotically to the tunes of marachis playing for her. And hey, don’t forget she’s married to Bill, who use to be the first black president, but now that he has been tossed from that commuity for trying to ghettoize Obama, we’ll take him because we’re friendly people.

Bill Clinton, the first Hispanic president who loves to inhale enchiladas on his visits to South Texas, and his wife, Hillary, the candidate we must save from that Obama guy. It’s now or never, gang. A strong RGV vote is one of the last roadblocks left between Obama and the Democratic presidential nomination.

Joaquin Tijerina, Chisme Blogger

Sitting high on their political perches in Washington, right-leaning Republicans egged on by the yakkers of conservative talk radio have no idea of the havoc their border fence will have on our South Texas communities.

I’m not sure that they much care about our community sensibilities and histories - in fact they likely care not one whit about such things given the urgency to protect their version of the American identity from excessive immigration, especially from Mexico. Right-wing Republicans pushed through their border fence project with the approval of a president who had previously spoken out against it, (that would be George W. Bush), because of their own biases and simplistic notions of what can secure a border.

And so now those of us who live here, and who have had families that have lived here for generations in many cases, will be forced to put up with this mess and the indignity of the federal goverment shoving this thing down our collective throats. Most of us in the Rio Grande Valley community aren’t against additional border security in the way of more Border Patrol agents, or improving ports of entry with more Customs agents and better bridge facilities to boost inspections. Barriers of some sort in short intervals around the bridges and/or certain heavily used crossing points may make sense in providing a bit better security.

But the notion of hundreds of miles of a border fence, some of it in fairly remote stretches, will be neither effective or cost-efficient, not to mention the tens of millions of dollars in maintenance it will take in yearly upkeep. Beyond the efficiencies, there are other practical realities that politicians in Washington would not have a clue about.

In Rio Grande City, for example, the feds are considering a fence map that would extend in some fashion into or around a historic 130-year-old military fort, as well as adjacent land that houses four school campuses, the local school district’s administrative offices, and a football stadium. In Brownsville, the fed’s first map had the fence running across the northside of a nearby levee, leaving UTB-TSC’s International Technology, Education and Commerce Campus on the other side of the fence with Mexico.

The feds backed off that notion after UTB’s leadership pointed out that, uh, it’d be nice to have part of our campus located in the United States. The latest is that feds via the Department of Homeland Security want access from the levees to the heart of the campus in an area near the Student Union and the Life and Health Sciences Building. So, rightly, UTB leadership wonders: How far will this fence cut into our campus?

UTB-TSC President Juliet Garcia has thus far refused to grant the feds access, saying giving the feds the access they want would jeoparadize campus security, and saying the building of an 18-foot fence on the edge of the UT System campus would “directly contravene our mission and destroy the campus climate that has been so painstakingly and carefully created.”

On Wednesday, the UT Board of Regents backed up Garcia’s position in urging the federal government to work cooperatively with the UT System “to identify solutions that will ensure border security and allow UTB-TSC to fulfill its education mission.”

Given that nearly half of this nation’s illegal immigrants entered this country legally and then became illegal by overstaying their visas, one wonders where all of the passion and heat is from the political right in going after this aspect of the immigration issue. But, of course, the heat and missives of the angry right is aimed at the southern border in its ongoing battle to protect America from multiculturalism and the Balkanization of this country that they’re always freaked out about.

And so, for that, let’s hope kids in Rio Grande City don’t have to go through a fence checkpoint to get to their classes, or students at UTB don’t have to sip their Coca-Colas at their student center while looking up at an 18-foot fence built to satisfy the wishes of Americans who are frightfully worried about too many Mexicans finding their way to Iowa.

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.

Holy multiculturalism, Batman!

Call Lou Dobbs, the CNN hothead, who goes postal at the mention of Mexicans, and goes nuclear when talking about people in LA celebrating Cinco de Mayo. Here’s a news flash that will rock the mundo of the CNN gordito: The University Interscholastic League is recognizing mariachi as category in its statewide music competitions.

Yep, that UIL, the one that governs high school sports in Texas as well as a number of other statewide competitions. This is serious. When the UIL recognizes something, it’s like the word of Zeus in the world of Texas public school competitions.  The UIL doesn’t do anything lightly, so going the mariachi route is the official nod that playing traditional Mexican music in the state’s public schools is not only OK, but on equal footing with traditional, all-American contests in band, choir and football.

“The bottom line is we thought this would have a lot of statewide attractiveness,” said Richard Floyd, the UIL’s state director of music, in an article in the Houston Chronicle.

Good point there, Rich, since high schools and middle schools in the Rio Grande Valley have had mariachi music programs for many years now. Good to see the rest of Texas catching up. High schools in La Joya and Edcouch-Elsa, in particular, have been known for years for the quality of their mariachi programs, but really it’s all over the Valley. Go to one of these concerts at a Valley high school, and you won’t only see locals there, but Winter Texans, too.

It’s no wonder. It’s great music, and the way the kids get plugged into these classics is something to see and hear. A Jan. 28 article in the Chronicle points to just how much these youngsters enjoy being part of these programs.

“I can’t live without mariachi,” said 13-year-old Alex Solis, who is half Hispanic and half Asian.

“It helps us stay on the right path, and it does teach you more about yourself and your history,” said another 13-year-old, Sabrina Rosas, of being involved in mariachi at Patrick Henry Middle School in Sugarland.

What a delicious irony, no? Students at a school named after an American revolutionary era icon playing Mexican music in a program officially recognized by the state of Texas.

Take a bite out of that one, Lou, as Alex Solis in Sugarland, Texas, strums on his guitarron, the sweet sounds of mariachi filling up another band hall in the Lone Star state.

Here’s how Patrick Henry would put it in the 21st Century: Give me liberty or give me a guitarron. Either one sounds good to me.

The seal-the-border crusade of right-tilting, talk show listening Americans is taking a hit these days with the demise of their preferred presidential candidates and the rise of Republican frontrunner John McCain, who is reviled by our friends on the right for believing immigrants are God’s children, too.

Alas, with McCain dispatching GOP flip-flopper Mitt Romney in Florida’s key primary on Tuesday, the way is clear for the Arizona senator to have a fairly easy time of it on his way to the Republican nomination. The immigration issue that so boils the blood of the far right of the Republican Party is rapidly losing steam, with questions about the issue given only a passing glance at the latest GOP presidential debates. So much for the issue that was to define the GOP contest.

All of this hardly means that efforts have stopped to tighten the flow of people across the border so we can prevent a terrorist attack from the farm workers, landscapers, and hotel cleaning ladies who would do our country harm by working. No, thankfully, very soon Americans will need to show all sorts of identification for a simple jaunt across an international bridge, not that everyone is happy about it.

“We’re not going to stand for it,” one member of Congress recently told USA Today. “There will be such a tie-up at the border, it will be the worst the world has ever seen.”

A U.S. senator holds similar views, telling USA Today that the new cumbersome ID requirments are “unwise, ill-considered and counterproductive.”

The politicians with the thundering views on the new regs aren’t from these parts. Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., is the member of Congress cited above, with Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., questioning the wisdom of the new rules. All of which goes to show that for all of the noise on right-wing radio about the southern border, (i.e. the need to keep Mexicans out from contaminating our national identity), issues of commerce and business are also important on the U.S.-Canadian border as well.

Here’s the rub: Beginning Jan. 31, U.S. and Canadian citizens ages 19 and above will have to show a government ID and a second ID such as a birth certificate, or a government document indicating naturalization, citizenship or birth abroad.

In the mix of confusion about this issue, the feds tried to make some amends by saying the U.S. State Department will take applications for a new border crossing guard that will help facilitate routine back-and-forths across the bridges. After all of the recent long delays to get passports, I’m sure the application process for these crossing cards will go smoothly, no?

Meanwhile back at the bridges, a recent Government Accountability Office report says our federal government ought to put more time and money to improving ports of entry rather than policing remote stretches of the border. The GAO study reported that about half of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in America entered at a legal port of entry. Gee, does that mean spending more money on improving staffing and facilities at bridges and immigration offices would be resources better spent than building a costly but ineffective fence that is largely a symbolic barrier to ease the worries of Betty Lou in Iowa and Bobby Joe in Alabama that we’re finally doing something to keep Mexicans out?

Sealing the border is a dicey proposition. A simple fence will get the job done in the minds of our simplistic thinking friends on the far right, but the new GOP frontrunner, McCain of Arizona, knows better, as do we who actually live on the border. The same seems to be the case for our fellow Americans living up north who see business and commerce cross the northern border on a daily basis. At least our friends up north won’t have to put with a border fence of their own, being that Canadian immigrants won’t erode America’s national identity the way Mexicans do.

Neither border will ever be sealed, nor fully secured in the sense that the talk show crowd wants. It will be increasingly harder to get across, though. Better make sure you have all of your goverment-approved documents in tow, especially if you’re a Hispanic American. And while you’re at, make sure to put your 2-ounce tube of tooth paste and hand soap in a little plastic bag for inspectors as well, as is required at airports these days. Never know when a new regulation might pop up to protect us from the ominous threats posed by farms workers, landscapers and hotel cleaning ladies.

On the cover of its current issue, Texas Monthly asks: “When will Texas elect its first Hispanic governor?”

Paul Burka, the magazine’s senior editor, and one of this state’s more astute political observers, predicts that magic year will be 2018, and says it will be in the mold of a current youngish Latino state representative from Dallas that I’ve never heard of. That sounds good, 2018, which is only 10 years from today, but it sounds a bit ambitious to me.

Here’s some basic reasons behind that view. One, despite the fact Texas is trending Hispanic in its demographics, that portion of the state’s electorate is still small when compared to overall vote totals. The lowest voter turnout numbers, in percentage to total registered voters, are in border counties, plain and simple.

Second, and quite bluntly, a good many white voters still find it difficult to vote for a candidate who happens to be Hispanic or African-American. That dynamic makes it difficult for candidates of color in any high-profile political race. This narrative is being played out in the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. In this view, Obama has run a campaign of dignity and balance, and one that is decidely broad in appeal, and non-racial in its composition.

And yet for all that Obama has done to run such a race, nagging doubts remain as to whether America is ready to elect a president who is African-American. A recent national poll shows that 94 percent of Americans say they are ready to vote for a presidential candidate who is African-American. That percentage slips to 71 percent when respondents are asked if their family members and friends are ready for such a candidacy. Only 54 percent believe that an African-American candidate will actually be elected president in 2008.

In other words, Americans are telling pollsters that they individually are ready to vote for a major presidential candidate who is black, but they believe a good many of the people they know will not, and even fewer of their fellow Americans are willing to do so.

Then there’s the political players at play. It has been widely thought Republicans would be the biggest impediments to the rising political fortunes of Hispanics and African-Americans. It is much harder to make that argument after watching the Clintons in action in South Carolina last week. The Billary presidential campaign, (that would be co-candidates Bill and Hillary Clinton), was quite shameful last week in its efforts to marginalize Obama as a “black” candidate in a number of different ways.

Big Dog Bill inferred last week that, yea, of course Obama was likely to win South Carolina since about half of the state’s Democratic voters are black. And then on his way out of the state on Saturday, Bill compared Obama’s impending South Carolina win to the 1984 and 1988 primary victories of Jesse Jackson in S.C., saying, in effect, that Barack’s blackness would be the only reason for the big win ahead.

The Clinton Machine’s bad behavior of recent weeks in playing the race card against Obama demonstrates vividly what entrenched political interests will do to dissuade the rise of a major candidate of color when such an ascension threatens their ambitions and plans. That such a strategy would come from Bill Clinton, of all people, who was formerly referred to as “first black president” for his supposed affinity for African-Americans, is especially appaling.

All of this comes back to our great state of Texas in imagining what sort of candidate who happens to be Hispanic could make a leap to the governor’s mansion. Speculation in recent years is that it would be a Tony Garza type, with this particular Tony being a Brownsville native who is a former Texas railroad commissioner, a Republican and good buddy of George W. Bush, and the current U.S. ambassador to Mexico. Political chisme had Tony coming back to Texas and running for guv or senator. Garza, however, married the richest woman in Mexico a few years back, and ask yourself this question: If you were married to a gazillionare would you bother to run for statewide office, or even work another day in your life?

Logic would say that such a breakthrough candidate would need to go the route of being the mayor of a large Texas city, or leap from being an attorney general or another notable statewide office. It’s hard to see such a candidate making such a big leap from the drudgery of the state legislature where politicians can be so badly blooded. A good part of Obama’s appeal is that he’s seen as being fresh and new. When’s the last time anyone saw a major figure from the Texas Legislature in such a way?

Of course, there was such a political figure about 20 years ago. His name is Henry Cisneros, the former mayor of San Antonio, and he was every bit the political star before his insecurities and marital problems took him out of play. If a Hispanic is going to be elected governor of Texas in 2018, as Burka predicts, it almost surely will have to be a Republican, and if Tony G isn’t available, who will that person be?

I don’t see such a person on the horizon in the next 10 years, meaning Burka’s pick is likely about 10-to-20 years away from political reality. The first Hispanic governor in Texas will have to wait until the state becomes more Hispanic and more of them actually vote, along with Texas becoming more of a two-party state where white voters are more willing to consider a candidate of color for high statewide office.

Burka says it’ll be 2018. I’d go more with 2028 when some current middle schooler or high school student with a multi-racial background, (a la Obama), will rise from a prominent position in politics or business to make a breakthrough that will be long in coming.

Today, we present a quiz on national security, Republican Party presidential politics and some of the patriots who adorn the American airwaves.

Question #1: Does America want to:

A. Secure the border

B. Seal the border

C. Close the border

If you chose A, you may be a Republican presidential candidate. The “secure the border” answer is one often heard from GOP hopefuls these days. For example, John McCain, who was stung by some party faithful for his past support of comprehensive immigration reform, now says he “got the message.” McCain formerly supported a long and conditioned path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants living in our fair land, but now says he “got the message,” meaning “we must first secure the border.”

Now, there has been scant explaination as to when securing the border will officially be reached. Is it when the number of illegal immigrants, sorry, I meant to say illegal alien apprehensions reaches some sort of acceptable level, or is it when such apprehensions stop all together? Is it when we reach a certain number of Border Patrol agents? Is it when only white guys are found to be working at construction sites, farms, and in the kitchens of fancy restaurants?

Is it when we get some of our troops back from Iraq and station them along the border, (Canada too maybe?), to keep armed watch against all of those drywallers, farm workers and hotel cleaning ladies coming through?

We just don’t know because no one is defining when that magic moment comes when the border is secured. McCain is the closest I’ve heard. The Arizona senator says once he’s takes office as president that he will work closely with border governers, (would that include Minnesota and New York’s guvs as well?), and then at some point these governors will certify the border as being secure. Thank goodness.

If you chose answer B, seal the border, you are likely a conservative talk show host or caller to these shows. For example, Fox News’ Sean Hannity is always talking about “sealing the border,” and says this country ought to do “whatever it takes” to get that done. Hannity, who grew up on Long Island in New York, looks really cute in his blue jean jacket and boots when he roughs it in the wild while venturing from his broadcast booth in NYC to trek down to “the border” for some photo opps for his show.

Showing a vast understanding based on the 15 minutes he has spent on “the border,” Hannity regularly holds forth on how Jorge the construction worker and Linda the hotel cleaning lady are “violating our sovereignty” by crossing illegal into this country, (a misdemeanor by the way under current civil law), to do all sorts of dastardly things, like, build houses and clean hotel rooms.

In fairness to pugnacious Sean, all sorts of his talk show species regularly spout off about “sealing the border,” a place they haven’t been to or seen other than the television imagery of Mexicans being herded into the back of Border Patrol trucks. Sean & Co., don’t really define what “sealing the border” means or how they would do it. We can feel in the blanks, I guess. Doing “whatever it takes” sounds pretty strong, though. Maybe some of the returning troops from the surge in Iraq can be redeployed to Eagle Pass.

If you chose answer C, close the border, you may live in a small town in Iowa. During the recently concluded presidential campaigns for the GOP caucuses in Iowa, illegal immigration became issue #1 in a state that is 97 percent white in its people composition. The fact that a few thousand Hispanics now call Iowa home has unsettled some of the locals in Iowa who apparently aren’t used to that sort of overwhelming diversity. I mean, when you’re only 97 percent of the population, you can see where there is cause for concern.

Hence, the GOP candidates often heard the following line during their campaign stops in Iowa: “What are you, (insert presidential candidate here), going to do to close the border?” To which, McCain, Huckabee, Romney, etc., would go into the whole “secure the border” thing.

 Now, when an Iowan wants to “close the border” so he or she won’t to have see another Mexican in their state, does this mean that all international bridges should be closed, or that all commerce between the U.S. and Mexico should come to a complete halt, or that the affluent Monterrey crowd can no longer shop at La Plaza Mall in McAllen?

I don’t know but I think it works like this. First we secure the border with gobs more Border Patrol agents. Then we seal the border with armed military troops. And then we close the border all together, which would bring the expansion at the Mercedes mall to a screeching halt being that the DeLeon family from Nuevo Leon will be deprived of their free enterprise right to buy overpriced Ray Ban sunglasses in America.

But, you know, about 45 percent of illegal immigrants in America didn’t cross a border. They came in legally, but then overstayed their visas.

So it begs the question: When are we going to secure, seal and close the visa offices?