US:Today's vote will decide whose voice is stronger: older Latinos intensely loyal to Hillary Clinton, or younger, better-educated Latinos who identify with Obama?, writes Ed Saslowin Brownsville, Texas
STATE SENATOR Eddie Lucio jnr pulled into the car park at Rudy's Country Store and Bar-B-Q one day last week in an old pickup truck worn down by its 237,000 miles. His wince as he stepped down from the driver's seat was evidence of two heart attacks and recent hernia surgery.
Doctors had ordered him to stay home, but he refused to watch from his couch the Texas campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton deteriorate. Lucio (62) planned to use his influence across the Rio Grande Valley to save her.
State representative Eddie Lucio III (29), arrived in a new Saab with a Barack Obama bumper sticker on the rear window. A few months ago, when he applied the decal, friends heckled him.
His endorsement of Obama alienated some constituents in a Latino district thick with Clinton loyalists. Career suicide, some colleagues called it. Now Lucio hoped to prove his instincts right.
Father and son have met at Rudy's for dozens of meals, but as they ate and casually talked about their respective candidates last week, the Lucios struggled with an uncomfortable new divide.
"I admire Eddie's optimism, but it's a little naive," the father said.
"Ah, come on," Big Ed - as his father calls him - joked. "The world is just passing you by."
A generational rift defines the presidential race among Latinos in the Rio Grande Valley, where Clinton once enjoyed almost complete support.
Obama introduced himself here two weeks ago, and he has since generated enough momentum with young voters to threaten Clinton's Latino support base. Polls indicate that Clinton's lead has evaporated in Texas.
An argument that began two months ago in the Lucio house- hold now echoes along the Texas border. Whose voice is louder: that of loyal Latinos who credit Clinton for her history of paying attention to an impoverished region that so many other politicians forget? Or that of younger, better-educated Latinos who identify with Obama as a minority who emerged from nothing?
Last week at Rudy's, the Lucios sat on opposite sides of the table in silence and weary from the campaign. Both are running unopposed for re-election, and they have devoted their free time to the Democratic primary.
The grandson of Italians who immigrated first to Mexico and then to Texas, Lucio jnr taught at school for $8,000 (€5,256) a year before running for local office in 1970. He aspired to serve simple people who wanted the tools for survival - Latino immigrants, legal and illegal, now making an average of $19,000 (€12,000) a year in a town that is 90 per cent Latino.
Lucio III left home to dabble in professional golf before graduating from law school in Austin, and he returned to Brownsville with grand visions of change.
He told his father that nothing is impossible, even in a town left without an interstate and with a main downtown boulevard that ends abruptly at the Mexican border.
"What people are beginning to realise down here is that there's such a thing as loyalty to a fault," Big Ed told his father at the restaurant. "Obama's got momentum, he's . . . "
"Now listen, son. Just listen," Eddie jnr interjected. "It's not like every young person down here is supporting Obama. I mean, what about my grandson, your nephew? He's a huge Clinton supporter."
"Dad. He's only eight."
"Okay. That's true. But right now, we're taking any support we can get." They both erupt in laughter.
Last Tuesday afternoon the son paced backstage at a packed auditorium near Brownsville and listened through a door to the escalating cheers of more than 300 Obama supporters.
He was scheduled to introduce Caroline Kennedy, and Big Ed considered it one of the most important speeches of his young political career. "So I'm kind of feeling the pressure."
Two months ago, he called Obama's headquarters to offer his help, becoming the first representative in the valley officially to endorse the senator from Illinois. Fifty-three officials in south Texas had already backed Clinton.
"I knew I was sticking my neck out," Lucio said. "But I knew that if I was going down for this, at least I was doing something I believed in and not just following blind loyalty." The risk paid huge dividends, and now the young legislator has become the unofficial spokesman of a south Texas upheaval.
He considers himself typical of young Latinos near the border: an American first and foremost, with more education than his parents.
In a town where most restaurants print their menus in Spanish, Lucio feels more comfortable speaking English. Obama, he decided, could create a US less divided by economic class and ethnicity.
Since the beginning of February, Lucio has concentrated on young Latino voters who had barely heard of Obama. Although he still trails in the Rio Grande Valley, the name recognition problem that helped Clinton carry the Hispanic vote in California last month has gone.
The weathered, single-storey tiendas on the main street have begun selling Obama "Si Se Puede!" T-shirts, proclaiming "Yes We Can!" The candidate's youthful message appeals to the 18- to 40-year-olds who make up 40 per cent of Texas's 8.5 million Hispanics. Those supporters, more attuned to modern America than their Spanish-speaking parents, spread Obama loyalty to older relatives who count on them for cultural advice. "Parents here usually take the pulse from their children," Lucio said. "Each generation has been here longer, so they become the guide."
On the other side of Brownsville, the father carried a Clinton sign into Valley Grande Manor, a single-storey nursing home with yellow stucco walls. By motivating the old guard of Brownsville, he hopes to prove that "no estamos muertos" -"we're not dead."
When he campaigns, Lucio jnr heralds Clinton as a rare politician who has consistently paid attention to this far corner of the country. He spent time with her during 21-city bus tours for her husband's presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996, and now bases his support for the senator from New York primarily "on history and loyalty." Sometimes, he refers to her endearingly as Hillaria.
He tells voters that Clinton has enough experience and historical knowledge of south Texas to ease the heartache caused here by inadequate healthcare and strict immigration laws. Obama, on the other hand, reminds him of his son.
"Very smart and inspirational," he says, "but just needing a little seasoning."
Until recently, Lucio assumed that the Rio Grande Valley would follow his lead by voting heavily for Clinton based on familiarity. "This is still Clinton country down here, but maybe Clinton country is smaller now," he said.
In the nursing home's common room, where a dozen residents were engrossed in a game of bingo, Lucio started a speech.
A woman in a wheelchair at the far end of the room protested that they were supposed to be playing bingo. He ignored her, and finished his speech.
"I guess there was one Obama fan in there who didn't want to hear it," he said afterward.
"I'm telling you, it seems like they're everywhere now."