A forgotten detail about 2008: Hillary Clinton beat Obama 2–1 among Latinos in their primary and it wasn't all name recognition — but big challenges still lie ahead to maintain huge Latino support for Democrats. One other one: the looming possibility of Jeb Bush.

Paul Sakuma / Associated Press Hillary Clinton applauds United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez during a rally in Salinas, California, on Jan. 22, 2008.

Republicans are keenly aware that they must begin to peel away Latino voters from Democrats, who gave President Obama 71% of their vote in 2012. But there's a huge problem for those 2016 efforts, rarely discussed and largely forgotten. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive favorite for the Democratic nomination, beat Obama 2–1 among Latino voters in the 2008 primary. It wasn't just name recognition, either. The Clintons have a robust network of Latino leaders and activists, and long history with outreach that dates back to 1970s in Texas. This is not to say Clinton's path is totally clear — her 2008 campaign was not without stumbles, and she faced difficult questions last year from activists on immigration. If Jeb Bush were the Republican nominee, some argue, he might actually compete for a significant share of Latino support, something activists aren't totally closed to. But there is no other candidate both as likely to win a party nomination and who will start with the established, enduring Latino support, as Clinton. "Republicans have a Latino problem," said Alfonso Aguilar, a former official in the George W. Bush administration and director of the American Principles Project's Latino Partnership, which promotes conservative values to the Latino community. He described the Republican policies around immigration that put the party stuck between an Obama "amnesty" position and a Steve King "enforcement-only" stance. "Hillary would be a formidable candidate with Hispanics," he said. Even for a candidate who has been on the national stage for decades, Clinton's history with Latino voters goes back a surprisingly long way. In 1972, when a young Hillary and Bill Clinton were working the ill-fated George McGovern campaign, she worked closely with well-respected union leader, Franklin Garcia, who took her under his wing as she helped register Latino voters in south Texas and along the Rio Grande Valley. "Hispanics in South Texas were," she wrote in her 2003 memoir Living History, "understandably, wary of a blond girl from Chicago who didn't speak a word of Spanish." But Garcia "took me places I could never have gone alone and vouched for me to Mexican Americans who worried I might be from the immigration service or some other government agency." Garcia drove her and Bill across the border to Matamoros, a dive that had only a "decent mariachi band," she wrote, but where she indulged in barbecued cabrito, or goat. Garry Mauro, one of her first contacts in Texas, told the San Antonio Express in 2008 that back then she had a "cultural affinity with Hispanics," asking questions and listening to their concerns, a dynamic that would be on display again, more than three decades later in Nevada, as she tried to woo an influential Latino activist. Eddie Escobedo was a flashy dresser — suits and hats to match — and hotly in demand by Democratic politicians. The owner of a radio station and El Mundo newspaper, both of which he used to great effect, the late Escobedo was an important ally for anyone who wanted to get their message out to Latinos in Nevada. That's why Brian Greenspun, a Clinton ally who runs the Greenspun Media Group (which includes the Las Vegas Sun, Las Vegas Weekly, and Las Vegas Magazine), invited Escobedo along with other minority leaders to his home for dinner to meet with Clinton as she was exploring a 2008 campaign. "She had a way about her," says Eddie Escobedo Jr., who was at the dinner. His father died in 2010 and left El Mundo to him. "The way my dad explained it, she was somebody you could talk to," Escobedo Jr. said. "She spoke from the heart and asked about what the Hispanic community was going through and what had to be done. My dad was taken aback by Hillary, by how she was able to communicate and listen and how she wanted to help Hispanics." Escobedo supported Clinton "tooth and nail," his son says — but of course she did not win. Obama campaign senior advisers repeatedly went to the El Mundo offices to wear down the activist, and finally got him to take a call from Obama. The two eventually had a meeting at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, where Escobedo presented Obama with a T-shirt and hat with the words "El Jefe" — the boss — on them. When Escobedo died from cancer in 2010, the Clintons offered their condolences in a letter to the family and Obama called Escobedo Jr.

Courtesy Eddie Escobedo Jr. Courtesy Eddie Escobedo Jr. Longtime influential Nevada activist Eddie Escobedo with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who both curried his support.

Democrats say it was these kinds of connections and endorsements, and not just name recognition against the ascendant but unknown Obama, that helped Clinton with Latinos in 2008. Her deep network of influential local and state leaders included former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who crisscrossed California for her, and Henry Cisneros from Texas, a longtime Latino leader who served in Bill Clinton's cabinet. They also say Latinos did well during her husband's presidency. "Latinos fondly remember the Clinton years from an economic perspective," said Democratic strategist Jose Parra, who worked for Harry Reid. "Older folks have prosperous memories from the Clinton terms." "Rarely have Hispanics prospered economically like they did under the Clinton administration, which transferred goodwill and good feelings," Democratic pollster Fernand Amandi said, noting that 2008 was the first year the Hispanic vote was competed for in a major way. Michael Trujillo, a field director for Clinton in North Carolina, California, and Texas in 2008, who now serves as a senior adviser to Ready for Hillary, said a nostalgia effect exists for some Latino voters when it comes to the Clintons because in 1992 and particularly in 1996, recipients of Ronald Reagan's amnesty that allowed more than 3 million undocumented immigrants to stay in the country legally, were able to cast their first votes — and they did so for Bill Clinton. Still, immigration activists on the left and Republicans reject the idea that Clinton has locked up the Latino vote. High-profile immigration advocates say she must clarify her stances after a major miscue in 2008 and shaky public answers in 2014 around the issue of deportations. Clinton, facing pressure before a Democratic debate in 2007, released a statement saying, "As president, I will not support driver's licenses for undocumented people and will press for comprehensive immigration reform that deals with all of the issues around illegal immigration, including border security and fixing our broken system." Many Democrats believe her stance gave Latino voters a clear difference between her and Obama and say the tide began to turn afterward. Lydia Camarillo with the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, said in 2008 that when Obama supported driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants, he gained the support of 29% of the Latino electorate in California. Just last year, DREAMer activists, undocumented youth brought to the country as children, began confronting Clinton in a series of protests around the country, including an instance in Iowa where she was pressed to say whether she supported Obama's executive actions. She gave an awkward answer — how the country needs to "elect more Democrats," which confused and annoyed activists. Influential Univision anchor Jorge Ramos asked if she had a "Latino problem" after her comments last summer during the surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America. "Some of them should be sent back," Clinton said at the time, noting the children who should be deported are the ones who don't have a legitimate claim for asylum or a family connection. "They need to be given the basics, the necessities and as much love as we can," she added. "Hillary Clinton hasn't exactly been the patron saint of undocumented immigrants," said longtime Republican strategist Ana Navarro. "Obama totally out-strategized her," Navarro continued, adding that Clinton's stance on the unaccompanied minors is an emotional issue "and unpopular position for many Latinos." It's important, activists said, not to let Clinton off the hook and make her prove her credentials. "For us the reason we started targeting her, a big part of it was that in her statements, with the children, we didn't see that she understands the issue very well," said national immigration activist Erika Andiola, who was there when Clinton was confronted in Iowa. "She's not in a place where she should be, as left as we would like her to be on the side of the immigrant community." "Absolutely, she needs to clarify her stances," said National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) Director Pablo Alvarado. "If she wants to run on a conservative agenda on immigration then she can come out and say it, but she has to know she will alienate a lot of us. We want to know what's going to happen with the 7 million or more people excluded by the president, whether deportation policies will continue to persecute them." Activists like Alvarado believe it's better when Latino voters are not taken for granted and are fought for by both parties. This partly explains why they have begun talking up Jeb Bush as someone they're intrigued by. "We're going to start pressuring Jeb Bush," Andiola said. "That by default is going to pressure Hillary to be more to the left and not make enforcement her first priority." One activist went further, saying that Bush, who last year said parents bringing their children across the border should be seen as an "act of love," could be better for immigration advocates than Clinton. "I think it is an open question whether Jeb Bush is to the left of Hillary Clinton on the issue of immigration — it's a real and open question."

Peter Cosgrove / Associated Press Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at a Hispanic rally with former Florida Republican Party Chairman Al Cardenas (left), Rep. John Quinones, R-Kissimmee (second from right), and former U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin (right).