From The Road
February 13, 2008 9:09 AM

Clinton's Texas Two-Step

By
Fernando Suarez
Topics
Hillary Clinton
(CBS)
From CBS News' Fernando Suarez:

McALLEN, TEX. -- Hillary Clinton will campaign heavily throughout Texas today with several stops along the Mexican border. Clinton's first rally takes place just 8 miles from Mexico and is clearly an attempt by the campaign to continue to woo Hispanic voters, one of the voting groups that has consistently backed her throughout the primaries so far.

Last night, Clinton was greeted by 12,000 students and supporters to a rock star welcome at the University of Texas at El Paso. While Barack Obama regularly packs arenas and large venues, she hasn't seen a crowd that large at one of her campaign events Clinton visited Oakland, California last year, where more than 10,000 people greeted her.

But it was no surprise that the campaign had set up such an event on the same day Clinton lost her 8th contest in a row to Obama. The image the campaign attempted to portray was not of a woman whose campaign seems to be faltering but, rather, the cheers and confetti would appear to anyone watching as though she were the candidate to beat at this point.

Clinton remains tied in national polls with Obama, but it seems her momentum has come to a screeching halt since losing several contests to him. For Clinton, the news potentially gets worse as the next three contests seem to favor Obama.

Despite the gloomy predictions for the next few weeks, she is planning on spending several days in Wisconsin, which votes next Tuesday. When asked if there were internal figures that show Clinton to have a fighting chance in Wisconsin or whether her campaigning there was an attempt to stay competitive in the infamous delegate race, a campaign source said "it was more like the latter."

All eyes remain fixed on Texas and Ohio, which vote on March 4, and could turn out to be her last stand. As one campaign source characterized the Texas race: It "is the big one."

Add a Comment
by ELEFRA1 February 13, 2008 4:14 PM EST
Prior to South Carolina Clinton had the black vote tied up nationally but now that Obama has it it%u2019s somehow racism? I love it--we will do and say anything to discredit why Obama is doing so well. Let us blame the media and say I%u2019m going to vote for someone because of spite. Wake up people! Obama is riding the wave of supporters be them black, white, republican or independent. He is doing so well because people have begun to listen to him; early on no one wanted to listen to Obama including blacks, voters simply heard Clinton and they recognized the good days. Last time I checked Iowa, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, North Dakota, Nebraska, Washington, Maine were not heavily populated by blacks%u2014hence it%u2019s not the black thing to do and it%u2019s not black racism.

Is Clinton not riding the wave of this Latino vote in California, Arizona, Nevada, New Jersey and most recently in Texas? Votes is a vote and guess what it sucks that we are just now realizing that the Latino vote, Black vote, and Asian vote counts just as much as the White vote does.
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by mtlom30 February 13, 2008 2:57 PM EST
It is so disheartening to hear how hard they are being to Hillary Clinton. I agree, they are giving Obama a free ride. I am a total Hillary supporter, but I never minded Obama, until the media started putting a crown his head. Now, I am supporting Hillary even more.
Reply to this comment
by crat3 February 13, 2008 2:06 PM EST
Obama is riding a wave of black racism based on skin color. Hillary Clinton can''t compete for the black vote because she can''t change her skin color. This is completely ignored by the media that is applauding and lauding Obama with all kinds of bogus analysis and media hype.
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by darrren12000 February 13, 2008 1:58 PM EST
"Winning" a state means nothing. Winning delegates -- priceless.
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