The night before the CNN-Univision Democratic presidential debate in Austin, Texas, a group of Hispanic democrats, aged 35 and older, participated in focus groups in Houston.  They watched political ads featuring Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and questioned the details behind Obama’s “change” message. Specifically, the Hispanic men, who were interviewed separately from the women, pondered if Obama was telling people what they wanted to hear or was there something more.

Leslie Sanchez book- Los Republicanos: Why Hispanics and Republicans need each other

To these Tejano voters, health care remained a top priority, not immigration reform, which according to a couple of the group’s participants whom I interviewed, was a surprise to the moderator. She asked whether Obama’s health care plan, which reportedly fails to insure 15 million people, would kill their support for his candidacy, and if celebrity endorsements (the likes of comedian George Lopez) would influence their vote.  Neither point proved important.  It is interesting to note that George Lopez stumped yesterday in El Paso.   (See it here)

More importantly, the group was energized by another issue. Assuming Barack Obama became the party’s presidential nominee, how could a man who never so much as served in the National Guard compete against a Prisoner of War (John McCain)? Their answer: not well. A third of the respondents were military veterans.For the participants in the focus group, and one may suspect for the larger electorate, a conflict exists between ethnic identity and service in the military.