Texas primary make-or-break for Clinton

AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said she's pointing to Texas and Ohio to keep her aspirations for the Democratic Party nomination for president alive.

Clinton's campaign has been following a big-state strategy, which paid off in New York and California but has given Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., momentum as he swept recent races in smaller states.

That trend makes Texas and Ohio, which have their primaries on March 4, all the more important to Clinton.

"I am absolutely looking to Ohio and Texas, because we know that those are states where they represent the broad electorate in this country," Clinton said this week. "I am very confident."

Both candidates planned to spend a lot of time there. On Tuesday, while primaries were under way in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, Clinton began a two-day visit to cities in Texas with large Hispanic populations.

"We're going to put a lot of resources into the state," Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said in a conference call, the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman reported. The newspaper said Clinton still leads by 10 percentage points in state polls.