Will Race Deter the Hillary Hispanics?

LAS VEGAS, N.M. In Charlie's Spic--and--Span diner, affectionately but jarringly dubbed "The Spic," the power brokers of this small, predominantly Hispanic town gather over huevos rancheros and coffee.

City councilors, county commissioners, and school board members tip their hats at one another and take their favorite maroon booths, as Marty Suazo, the longtime San Miguel County Democratic Party Chair, scans the crowd.

"This is strong Hillary Country," he says. "[We're] Soldiers of Clinton."

Indeed, all but one elected official in this town of 15,000 residents is a Democrat. And when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won the Democratic presidential primary in New Mexico by 1,809 votes, she carried San Miguel County by 1,100 votes.

But ever since Sen. Barack Obama vanquished Clinton nationwide, her Democratic soldiers here have been slow to switch sides.

Are subtle racial concerns holding them back? Will these Hillary Hispanics, usually loyal Democrats, turn out for their party's pick on November 4?

The conflicting views expressed by customers at the Spic--and--Span provided reasons to wonder.

Upstairs, older, veteran Hispanic officials were politicking, nodding and waving at one another across the bustling orange room. But downstairs, out of sight, two--dozen Barack Obama volunteers huddle in the diner's baby blue basement plotting their own outreach.

The demographics of those in the basement are notably distinct. Over half of the Obama volunteers are white. A number of them weren't born in this small town. And their leader, Jill Baskerville, is one of only a handful of African Americans in the county. Baskerville says months after Obama's victory that she's still struggling to get the Hillary Hispanics upstairs to openly support Obama.

The southwest state went for Democrat Al Gore by 366 votes out of 800,000 cast in 2000, and then for Republican George Bush by 6,000 votes in 2004. Strong Democratic turnout in the Hispanic north is key to offsetting the conservative southern counties of "Little Texas," and will determine whether Obama can hang on to his current lead in the polls.

Upstairs Suazo muses: "To say race doesn't matter would be ludicrous... But it's much deeper than...a black-white issue. It's the way people in San Miguel County prefer to do business... We're traditionalist democrats, like the Clintons."

He nods at a passerby and continues: "When the Clintons come in they reminded us of John F. Kennedy. They campaigned from the governor...right down to the county chairs." County Chairs like him.