(Photo: Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) gestures during a post-primary town hall meeting on the campus of Tennessee State University on January 26, 2008. Sloan Breeden/Getty Images .)
[Associated Press material was included in this report.]
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton will speak this afternoon at San Diego State's Cox Arena. The junior senator from New York will address a town hall meeting at 1:30 p.m. to promote her plans "to strengthen the middle class."
University officials say everyone who comes to the event will have to go through a security check at the entrance. Signs, backpacks, umbrellas, beverages and recording devices will not be allowed.
The visit will be Clinton's second in San Diego County in three weeks, and comes alongside other campaign events today in Los Angeles, San Jose and San Fransisco. She visited a home in Bonita earlier this month.
Part of the California push is to hold the lead AP polls show Clinton enjoys over Barack Obama in wooing Hispanic voters, who could prove crucial in this Tuesday's 22-state Democratic presidential showdown.
Obama is hustling to close the gap, matching Clinton's Spanish-language ads and tasking Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to campaign on his behalf in New Mexico and other places where many older Latinos revere the Kennedy name. Regarding younger Latinos, Obama hopes his ability thus far to energize college-age blacks and whites will apply similarly to Hispanics in California and other states voting next week.
The Illinois senator concedes that the Super Tuesday calendar gives him far less time to engage and charm voters than he had in New Hampshire and South Carolina, where he scored two big victories in January.
Many Clinton supporters, meanwhile, feel her years-long outreach to Hispanics, and her husband's popularity, will serve her well among the nation's largest and fastest-growing demographic.
