It’s Texas or bust for Hillary Rodham Clinton, hubby Bill admitted yesterday.
“If she wins Texas and Ohio, I think she will be the nominee. If you don’t, then I don’t think she can,” he told a crowd in the city of Beaumont.
“It’s all on you.”
The former president spoke as he and his wife painted Barack Obama as a smooth-talking lightweight.
With the clock counting down to the two March 4 state primaries that are widely seen as Sen. Clinton’s last stands, the fast-paced developments included:
* Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton‘s top strategist, told reporters that she will pound Obama on who is best qualified for the White House, saying she is the “only person in this race” who is ready for the job.
* Hillary Clinton broke out sharp new attack lines against Obama at a fund-raiser at Hunter College, saying, “It’s time to get real about how we actually win this election. It’s time that we move from good words to good works, from sound bites to sound solutions.”
* Bill Clinton, stumping in Texas, questioned whether Obama would be able to deliver on his promises: “I think the fact of change is more important than the feeling of change. If you want the solution and not the speech, then this is a clear choice.”
* A group of Democratic strategists and Clinton allies formed a so-called independent “527” group, the American Leadership Project, which will target Texas and Ohio with a string of ads and mailings on middle-class issues.
Meanwhile, a Reuters/Zogby poll showed Obama with a hefty national lead over Clinton, 52 percent to 38 percent, and Harold Ickes, one of her top advisers, acknowledged the Illinois senator is now the front-runner.
Also, Clinton yesterday held a series of fund-raisers that officials said brought in $1 million.
Federal election filings show Clinton raised $20 million last month, to Obama’s $36 million. She has raised $118 million during the campaign, the filings showed.
But aides to Obama, who was fresh off Tuesday victories in Wisconsin and Hawaii, said he’s raised an eye-popping $150 million this campaign cycle.
In her Manhattan speech, a scratchy-voiced Clinton said Obama has “run a good race,” but “Americans have a choice to make in the election, and that choice matters . . . While words matter greatly, the best words in the world aren’t enough unless you match them with action.”
She highlighted a video from MSNBC where an Obama supporter struggled, and failed, to name any of his candidate’s accomplishments.
Obama responded, “It’s not a choice between speeches and solutions. It’s a choice between the politics of divisions and distractions that did not work . . . in Wisconsin and that will not work in Texas, or a new politics of common sense, of common purpose, shared sacrifices, shared prosperity.”
As for Clinton’s new 527 group, Roger Salazar, president of the American Leadership Project, said its purpose is to “shine a light” on issues like health care and mortgage foreclosures, and will keep a “positive” focus. Its first ad mentions Obama only obliquely.
But the Obama campaign said it’s “organized on the same model as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and other 527s operating outside the financing limits of federal campaign finance law.”
The Swift Boat vets dogged John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race, clouding his Vietnam military record.
Clinton and Obama will appear on a debate televised by CNN at 8 p.m. tonight in Austin, Texas.