Video: 1,200 hear Lopez back Obama
Video: George Lopez speaks to the media
Photo gallery: George Lopez

Hollywood television celebrity and popular comedian George Lopez brought U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's message of hope and change Wednesday afternoon to an estimated 1,200 potential young voters at the University of Texas at El Paso.

"It is the time of the Latino, your time to step up, your time to take this country over," Lopez said, eliciting applause. "But si se puede doesn't mean anything unless you go out and make it happen."

Obama and opponent U.S. Sen.

Hillary Rodham Clinton are trying to harvest Texas' 228 total delegates in Tuesday's Democratic primary.

Lopez spent 22 minutes on stage spinning familiar comedy lines and urging students to vote early and then vote again in precinct caucuses after the polls close on election day. He later fielded questions backstage.

"I've seen in Senator Obama somebody who really cares about people. It's nice to feel like you're important to the fabric of America," Lopez said. "Latinos cannot be under fire every day and when it comes time to make a difference, you don't vote."

Lopez, 46, has been performing comedy in El Paso since 1986 and routinely sells out shows here.

Lopez also spent a few minutes chatting with students after making his formal pitch for Obama.

Stacey Bernard, 22, a senior

kinesiolology major, and her friend Leticia Lopez, 32, a senior multidisciplinary studies major, have already been plugging Obama on campus. They both described the comedian as very down-to-earth.

"This is a big deal for us, a Latino community as well as multi-racial," Leticia Lopez said. "It's a great opportunity for us to experience this."

Event organizers filled Magoffin Auditorium, but it was hard to tell whether most students went to embrace the Obama campaign or to be entertained with Lopez's politically laced but familiar stand-up comedy.

"This was fun and more entertaining than Hillary's rally, but I'm not going for either one of them right now," said Jacob Torres, 20, a sophomore education major. "Some of the stuff they're promising is kind of hard to accomplish."

Ramón Rentería may be reached at rrenteria@elpasotimes.com; 546-6146.