By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: February 22, 2008
DALLAS — With the mood of her campaign darkened by the death of a motorcycle officer escorting her motorcade Friday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed to carry her campaign beyond the Ohio and Texas primaries on March 4, despite the lengthening odds of her capturing the Democratic presidential nomination.
In television interviews and at two voter rallies here in Texas, Mrs. Clinton returned to the theme of her surprisingly reflective closing remarks at the debate with Senator Barack Obama on Thursday night.
In those remarks, which some took as a valedictory to her long campaign for the nomination, she said that, “whatever happens” in the election contest, she and Mr. Obama would prosper.
Aides insisted the remark was not an admission that she believed she would lose the race but rather an attempt to refocus the campaign from the drama of the two compelling and historic candidates battling for the nomination to the struggles of ordinary voters.
“You know I made it very clear that this election is about all of you,” she said at a morning rally on a chilly street corner in Dallas Friday morning. “It’s about your futures, your families, your jobs.”
“For me,” she added a moment later, “it really is about what we can do together.”
Her opponent, Mr. Obama, spent Friday campaigning in parts of southern and central Texas, targeting areas that are home to many Hispanic voters, who are seen as potentially decisive in the March 4 Texas primary. His first appearance was at the University of Texas-Pan American Friday, his first in the strongly Democratic Rio Grande Valley, where Hillary Clinton has a long history of support. After that, he planned to hold rallies in Corpus Christi and Austin.
In an interview on the CBS “Morning Show,” Mrs. Clinton was asked directly if her closing debate remarks meant she thought she was going to lose the race. Mr. Obama has won 11 straight contests since the Super Tuesday races on Feb. 5, all by double-digit margins. |
