Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her advisers increasingly believe that, after a series of losses, she has been boxed into a must-win position in the Ohio and Texas primaries on March 4, and she has begun reassuring anxious donors and superdelegates that the nomination is not slipping away from her, aides said Monday.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Clinton held a buck-up-the-troops conference call on Monday with donors, superdelegates and other supporters; several of them said afterward that she sounded tired and a little down, but determined about Ohio and Texas. And these donors and superdelegates said that they were not especially soothed, saying they believed she could be on a losing streak that could jeopardize her competitiveness in Ohio and Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has to win both Ohio and Texas comfortably, or she\u2019s out,\u201d\u009d said one Democratic superdelegate who has endorsed Mrs. Clinton, and who spoke on condition of anonymity to share a candid assessment. \u201cThe campaign is starting to come to terms with that.\u201d\u009d Campaign advisers, also speaking privately in order to speak plainly, confirmed this view.<\/p>\n
Several Clinton superdelegates, whose votes could help decide the nomination, also said Monday that they were wavering in the face of Mr. Obama\u2019s momentum after victories in Washington, Nebraska, Louisiana and Maine last weekend. Some of them said that they, like the hundreds of uncommitted superdelegates still at stake, may ultimately \u201cgo with the flow,\u201d\u009d in the words of one, and support the candidate who appears to show the most strength in the primaries to come.<\/p>\n