In an environment more suitable for a basketball game, spectators munching on popcorn and rock music playing to pump up the crowd, former President Bill Clinton stressed to a Houston audience the importance of Texas in this election.
"The Democratic nomination is going to be determined by what happens in Texas and Ohio," Clinton said.
Appearing on stage Wednesday night at Hofheinz Pavillion nearly two hours after the event was scheduled to start, Clinton urged the crowd to get out and vote early and caucus for his wife, presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.
"Texas is the only state in America where you can vote twice in the same election without going to jail," Bill Clinton said, referring to Texas’ complex, two-vote Democratic primary.
Bill Clinton emphasized the importance of the Latino vote when he told the audience about Hillary’s experience in the Hispanic community.
"Hillary’s first job in politics, over 35 years ago as a very young woman, was registering Hispanic voters in Texas," Bill Clinton said.
Political and social activist Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez in the 1960s, came out before Bill Clinton to inspire voters to rally together and also had the crowd join her in a "Latino ‘Viva’ for Hillary Clinton."
"It’s not in the vote. We want you to go out and organize your friends, organize your coworkers, organize your neighboorhood," Huerta said. "This is the way we are going to win."
Bill Clinton told of Hillary Clinton’s answer to his question of how she would determine success as a president if she was elected.
"She said, ‘First of all, are the American people better off when I’m through than when I started? Second, do our children have a brighter future? And third, is our world coming together instead of being torn apart?’" he asked the audience.
Hillary Clinton knows a lot about change as she has made it happen during her time as a senator and first lady, Bill Clinton said.
Bill Clinton then told the audience what the difference is between his wife’s running mate, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary’s promises of "change" in the U.S. should she win the presidency.
"The choice is between a candidate who seems to embody change and one who has spent a lifetime making change," he said.
