As Obama Wins State After State, Clinton Hedges Her Bets on Texas and Ohio

With a slim margin of delegates separating Democratic Presidential Candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, momentum could be the determining factor in this race.

Unfortunately, for Hillary, Barack has all the momentum. He has dominated all of the primaries since Super Tuesday, and even claimed a lead in the delegate count after his victories in the "Beltway Primaries".

And Obama's victories aren't just showing up in the mere popular vote, but you can see him slowly ciphering away at individual demographic groups that were once completely controlled by Barack Obama.

In the Democratic Virginia primary, the biggest primary of the Beltway Primaries, Obama won the female vote 60%-39%. Quite a staggering victory considering that was a group that Clinton had controlled throughout the majority of this primary season.

In past votes, Clinton had generally dominated lower-income and less educated groups as well. However, in Virginia, Obama won the non-college graduate vote 63%-37%, and he won every single income group as well.

Obama even got 18% of the people who said Clinton was a more a qualified Commander in Chief, while Clinton only 2% of those who thought Obama was the better "CC."

When a candidate starts eating into the other candidate's base like that, it is quite easy to come to the conclusion that the momentum is clearly changing sides.

However, despite the fact that the race is so close and that Barack Obama appears to have all of the momentum, Clinton feel as if she can avoid campaigning in the states that are prior to big prizes of Texas and Ohio on March 4^th. She basically skipped out on campaigning in the Beltway Primaries, just as she wasn't too prevalent when Kansas, Washington, and Louisiana were up for grabs.

But this type of strategy could prove fatal. Knowing that Texas and Ohio will provide a dominating share of the remaining delegates, she is clearly trying to pick her battles to win the Democratic nomination. But Rudolph Giuliani essentially tried to do the same thing by skipping out on Iowa and New Hampshire and campaigning in Florida. He fell so far out of public awareness that all of his campaigning in Florida became irrelevant when nationally acknowledged candidates started campaigning in the state.

Now, it's unlikely that Clinton will fall out of public recognition given her stature and the closeness of this race. But if people continue to see Obama win state, after state, after state, the idea that she is the more electable candidate certainly will fail. And like my man James Carvel said on Larry King Live, if Clinton doesn't win both Ohio and Texas after concentrating so heavily on those states, "It's over!"