Friday Before Ohio & Texas: How's Hillary Doing?

Consider the week as a day at work. If Monday-Thursday is nose-to-the-grindstone with no breaks allowed, then Friday is a bit more leisurely; it's the five minutes you take at the end of the day to wrap everything up.

On Friday I stop writing and start reading other women's voices I may have missed during the week. And so long as she remains a presidential candidate, I will read what I can about Hillary Clinton.

Her viability will likely end on Tuesday, March 4, depending on how she does in Texas and Ohio.

What does Ohio think? From New York Times op-ed columnist Gail Collins who once called Ohio home and describes it as "a no-frills kind of place, suspicious of glamour," a witty take on the Buckeye State's regard for Clinton:

When I grew up in Cincinnati, we always rooted for the players who worked really, really hard, not the ones who were so talented they made everything look easy. If Hillary were a baseball player, she’d be Pete Rose. Minus, of course, the unfortunate gambling issues and the tendency to scratch inappropriate places while standing in the infield.

So there she was Wednesday here in Zanesville, holding an economic summit in a gymnasium....one of the best-known human beings on the planet. The first woman ever to be a serious United States presidential contender; the face that launched a thousand books; a former first lady, current U.S. senator and survivor of the most famous sex scandal of the century. And yet she has managed to become the boring candidate in this primary.

This is one of the great anti-glamour stories in history. How could Ohio not relate?

What does Texas think? From Houston Chronicle political columnist Julie Mason, discouraging news for Hillary. Mason says that a month ago, Texas appeared to be in the bag for Clinton. But in a commentary posted last night just before midnight, she writes, "With four days until the vote, she's lost her advantage and is battling for a Texas win that appears increasingly unlikely." Mason cites the changing face of voters as the real issue:

"The new-voter factor is huge," said Keir Murray, a Houston Democratic strategist. "Her solid lead was always predicated on the usual suspects turning out, and then you throw all these new voters in the mix and the dynamic changes."

Voter turnout in a routine Democratic primary in Harris County is generally fewer than 100,000. Officials are predicting Democratic turnout by the end of Tuesday will reach 350,000. The high-turnout, new-voter factor in earlier states has strongly favored Obama....

Her Texas organization relied on surrogates from President Clinton's 1992 Texas campaign...who are no longer marquee players in the party.

"They did a pretty good job of reaching out to get the who's who in the Democratic Party, but these were the old-timers," said George Strong, a longtime Houston Democratic consultant. "You look at superdelegates in the state, and the ones committed to her go back at least to the '90s, and some ... go back to the '70s."

Clinton in Ohio - Photo © Eric Thayer/Getty Images

And from last week, a related article:
How's Clinton Doing? Two Genders, Eight Views