Clinton prepared to press on past Tuesday's races
Hillary Clinton's campaign team hinted today she will press on with the race for the Democratic nomination even if she loses Texas, one of the biggest states in the country which goes to the polls tomorrow.
On the eve of what has been billed as a make-or-break day for her campaign, Clinton's strategists said she will brush aside calls from supporters of Barack Obama and other senior Democrats to stand down if she loses.
As well as Texas, three other primaries are being held tomorrow: Ohio, another mega-state, as well as two small New England ones, Vermont and Rhode Island.
Indicating her intention to stay in the race, she told a rally in Toledo, Ohio, today: "I'm just getting warmed up."
Echoing the sentiment, Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist, in a conference call with reporters, said: "We expect on Wednesday morning that the momentum of senator Obama will be significantly blunted." Obama has won the last 11 contests.
Penn added there were lots of contests still to play for beyond tomorrow.
The Clinton team expressed confidence that she will take Ohio but was reluctant to make predictions about Texas.
Obama's aides said privately they felt they had a good chance of a win in Texas, but were less certain about Ohio.
Polls show Clinton leading in Ohio and Rhode Island, but Obama ahead in Vermont, and the two in a dead heat in Texas.
Bill Clinton said a fortnight ago his wife had to win both Texas and Ohio to remain competitive, but her strategists claimed today that winning Ohio would be enough.
The governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, who dropped out of the Democratic race in January, is among those putting pressure on Clinton to stand down if she does badly tomorrow. He said on yesterday: "I just think that D-Day is Tuesday."
John Kerry, the senator who was the Democratic nominee in 2004 and is now an Obama supporter, said: "Hillary Clinton has to win a big victory in both Ohio and Texas. It's not just winning a little bit. In order to close the gap on pledged delegates, she's got to win a very significant victory."
In spite of the upbeat message from the Clinton team, the stresses inside her campaign were exposed today.
In an astonishing lapse of discipline close to such a crucial voting day, Penn sent an email to the Los Angeles Times over the weekend in response to a story being prepared about internal rows.
In it, he claimed he had "no direct authority in the campaign", suggesting he is preparing the ground to avoid blame if she fails to secure the nomination.
Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, sent another email to the paper saying Penn did have direct responsibility for the strategy and the message.
There were other signs too of Clinton's vulnerability. A few weeks ago, when Clinton was ahead in the polls in Ohio and Texas, her campaign team predicted that wins in the two states would leave Obama and Clinton tied in the number of delegates who will decide the nomination.
But they backed off that prediction for the first time today, acknowledging that Obama was still likely to remain ahead.
Clinton has mounted a much more aggressive campaign over the last few days and hit him hard today over his links with Antoin 'Tony' Rezko, the property developer whose trial for alleged corruption opened in Chicago today.
She also exploited a leaked memo suggesting Obama has been lying about adopting protectionist policies, a hot issue in recession-hit Ohio.
Obama has been saying publicly he would renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, which many Americans blame for job losses. But the leaked memo from the Canadian government quotes one of Obama's economic advisers, Austan Goolsbee, saying threats to renegotiate should not be taken seriously.
The memo quotes Goolsbee as saying this "should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans".
The implication that Obama is being hyprocritcal on trade is potentially damaging for him. Goolsbee said his views had been taken out of context.
The Clinton team today put out her most negative television ad yet, claiming that Obama had been derelict in his duty by expressing concern about al-Qaida in Afghanistan but then failing to hold a single meeting of the Senate sub-committee on Afghanistan that he chairs.
The ad ends: "Hillary Clinton will never be too busy to defend our national security."
John McCain also goes to the polls in the same states tomorrow but with clear majorities over Mike Huckabee, suggesting he could end the night close to securing the 1,191 delegates he needs for the Republican nomination.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/03/hillaryclinton.uselections2008
Do the Democrats want the White House in November or do they want to hand it to McCain - I'm puzzled...