Texas and Ohio may decide race

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The race for the Democratic Party nomination, destined to produce the first major-party nominee who's not a white man, has resisted all previous attempts to bring it to an end.

This week brings another chance for that to happen.

The Texas and Ohio contests Tuesday could make Illinois Sen. Barack Obama the presumptive nominee, rejuvenate the candidacy of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, or leave her with a tough decision about whether to carry on.

After a month in which Clinton raised $32 million and Obama raised an estimated $50 million or more, Clinton's advisers at times have suggested she would bow out of the race if she lost either state, after 11 straight losses.

For Obama, wins in Texas and Ohio would mark the culmination of a stunning and improbable rise to power, coming at the expense of a founding partner of the party's ranking political family, a woman who had been viewed as the front-runner for the better part of a year.

He'd be able to launch an eight-month, general-election campaign against the Republicans' expected candidate, John McCain — last week it seemed as though it had started already — and try to unite Democrats behind him with little fuss or furor.

But if Clinton were to win both events, a different scenario would unfold.

Her candidacy would be very much alive, despite the 11 consecutive losses. Her supporters would be reinvigorated, her status confirmed as the preferred choice of the big electoral-vote states needed for victory in the fall.

And Democrats would be facing the specter of a prolonged nomination battle, lasting through the April 22 Pennsylvania primary and perhaps longer.

It would carry with it the possibility of increased divisiveness, with unelected superdelegates holding the balance of power.

Less clear is what Clinton would do should she and Obama split the two contests.

Her aides sound intent on proceeding, saying that anything less than an Obama sweep of the four primaries Tuesday — including Vermont and Rhode Island — would signal the start of a Clinton comeback.

"With all the advantages he has, if he doesn't win all four contests, it means there's a concern on the part of Democrats about him as the nominee," Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director, said Friday.

"We'll see if voters begin to have some buyer's remorse."

Working against her, though, would be the difficulty of raising more money and the daunting delegate arithmetic.

"They have a huge task in front of them to erase our pledged-delegate lead," said David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, adding he expected tight contests Tuesday, with a near-tie in terms of delegates.

"They're going to fail, and fail miserably."

Obama has bought large amounts of advertising and built extensive get-out-the-vote organizations in his attempt to defeat Clinton in Ohio and Texas. The intensity of Obama's drive is especially apparent on television, where, using his huge financial advantage, he has outspent Clinton nearly 2-1 in the two states, helping him to eat deeply into double-digit leads she held in polls just weeks ago.

Their faceoffs are not just on television.

Obama has a town-hall-style meeting in Westerville, Ohio, northeast of Columbus, today. Clinton just announced one there, too. Obama will be at Westerville Central High School, Clinton at Westerville North High School.

In a sign of his confidence and his strategy of amassing delegates, Obama spent part of Saturday in Rhode Island.

Polls suggest the race is deadlocked in Texas; Clinton's lead in Ohio has been whittled away, but her supporters said she remained optimistic about a victory there.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, who has campaigned across the state with Clinton, said, "I think we've survived the initial blast of the Obama phenomenon, and we're now holding steady."

In Texas, Clinton presented a television advertisement suggesting Obama was not ready to lead the world in dangerous times, while in Ohio she appealed to blue-collar voters by attacking trade and tax policies that she said unfairly protected corporations.

Obama used his Texas ads to denounce business as usual in Washington, reprising an attack on Clinton. In Ohio, he emphasized his opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was passed while Bill Clinton was president.

Obama's financial advantage is helping him beyond the airwaves.

His campaign flew 200 paid organizers from across the country to 10 campaign offices in Texas right after the Feb. 5 primaries, aides said, when some of Clinton's staff members were volunteering to work without pay.

Clinton's on-the-ground effort is no less aggressive and extensive; in particular, she has tapped into the network of support provided to her by Strickland. But in both states, her corps of workers is made up largely of volunteers, many from the two states.

Others arrived on their own dime, typically from Washington, D.C., and New York, some responding to an e-mail plea sent by Chelsea Clinton.

In Texas, Obama's campaign began the final part of its Caucus Education Program to make certain its supporters understand a complicated Texas voting procedure. It includes first a primary, where two-thirds of the delegates are chosen, followed by a caucus, where the remaining third are picked.

Obama has repeatedly defeated Clinton in caucuses, and his aides said that because of that, Obama could end up winning more delegates on Tuesday, even if he loses the popular vote.

Clinton's aides said Saturday that in part because of defeats she had suffered to Obama in caucuses, they had made an all-out effort to identify voters who would get out for the primary during the day and caucus at night.