Letters to the Editor
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It's right to ask why he didn't win California
And yes, he didn't successfully reach out to Latinos. He started late in the game in California, lost a lot of early voters and really didn't reach out to the right community leaders until it was too late and they were with Hillary. I'm sure he narrowed the gap some in the last week but not with the right groups and he needs to keep that in mind.
The good news for Hillary is that clearly her ground game and name recognition is still very powerful for the Latino vote. The bad news is that her pull in that community is really only going to matter once in the 6 weeks and that's in a state with a large African-American, anti-Hillary sentiment, Texas. To put a positive light on this, she has already sent down a team to Texas to start her ground game so Texas is still up for grabs and if she can keep it to a tie or better it'll be a victory assuming February goes as her staffers expect it to go.
The good news for Obama is that Texas is the last state that will have a large Latino community outside the June 7 PR election. He can take some of the lessons of California and apply them to Texas. He won't be spread thin by 22 states so he'll be able to offer personal face time and he's got a bit of anti-Hillary sentiment to help him along in the non-Latino community. Lastly, the best news about this all. The state that has proven his biggest challenge so far is one that is a lock for Democrats in the general. If he gets the nod, there's no doubt that most of the leaders in CA who backed Hillary will back Obama. The bad news for Obama is that the time he spends working hard on the February races will detract from the state with the highest # of delegates of the remaining states. He needs to win nearly every contest between now and 3/4 in order to meet expectations. This means he'll be spending less time in Texas with the previous Latino issue and less time in Ohio while those two states are what Hillary will be focusing on for a longer time. We saw how this hurt him in Cali and it could do the same in Texas. To put a positive light on this though, he's not going to be in 22 races in the next 30 days and the races are not all on the same day