Clinton faces exit as Obama gains in 'firewall' states

(Ben Sklar/Getty)

If Hillary Clinton is destined to bow out of the presidential race 11 days from now, after the "firewall" states of Ohio and Texas deliver their verdicts, she can at least take comfort that she went out in some style.

In perhaps the most important of all the 19 Democratic debates to date, Senator Clinton was, by turns, combative, passionate and more than a little valedictory at the University of Texas on Thursday night. She wavered between trying to out-debate Barack Obama on policy, landing a nasty personal jab or two, and summoning all the grace under fire that she could muster.

With the polls showing the seemingly unstoppable Mr Obama catching up with her fast in the two big races on 4 March, she needed some kind of miracle – a knock-out punch to let the voters know she was still very much in contention.

She didn't land that blow. Instead, she ended the debate in conciliatory, almost elegiac mode, reaching out to take Mr Obama's hand and reflecting on how their personal struggles pale next to the battles ordinary people fight every day across the country.

"I am honoured to be here with Barack Obama. I am absolutely honoured," she said to cheers and applause. "And you know, whatever happens, we're going to be fine. You know, we have strong support from our families and our friends. I just hope that we'll be able to say the same thing about the American people and that's what this election should be about."

Mrs Clinton's handlers pointed to her concluding speech as proof she was back in contention – her finest moment on the stump since her equally heartfelt, tear-moistened response to a voter on the eve of the New Hampshire primary in early January.

To many pundits and voters, however, it sounded like the first hint of farewell. John Edwards made an almost identical "we'll be fine" speech at the end of January, just as he was making the decision to withdraw.

The news has been almost unremittingly grim for Mrs Clinton since she captured the big states of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and California on 5 February. Her once-flush campaign has been strapped for cash, unable to raise more money at anything like the dizzying pace set by her rival.

Former Clinton loyalists such as Dee Dee Myers, the former White House press secretary, have expressed astonishment at the lack of planning for a post-Super Tuesday campaign. Mrs Clinton herself expressed surprise the other day at the arcane mathematics of delegate apportionment in Texas – as though nobody on her staff had briefed her on what she is about to face.

Like an earnest, top-of-the-class schoolgirl who wishes she was somehow cooler, she has pumped out one policy-rich campaign statement after another – on Kosovo's independence, on the biggest beef recall in US history, on the mortgage and foreclosure crisis – all of them carrying an undertone of incomprehension that she is not getting more credit for her hard work.

She has also tried – and, it seems, failed – to go negative on her rival by accusing him of being all words and no action. One accusation that did her no favours in the Wisconsin primary earlier in the week – she lost by 17 points – haunted her again in the debate: her charge that Senator Obama had plagiarised parts of his speeches from Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts, who is also a close friend and adviser.

She was booed as she tried to push the point further with a clearly scripted line: "You know, lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in; it's change you can Xerox."

It was the low point of the debate for her, the one that formed most of the instant headlines on websites and political blogs. Given the way the tide is turning in the race, it may well come to be seen as the moment her presidential ambitions came to a final screeching halt.

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