SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS — Hillary Rodham Clinton, once seen as a lock for the Democratic nomination, battled Saturday into possibly the last weekend of her presidential campaign, struggling to reverse a tide of money and momentum that has turned dramatically toward Barack Obama.
The New York senator stormed across Texas, questioning Obama's readiness to lead, particularly on national security issues.
"You are, in effect, hiring the next president," Clinton told supporters at a rally at a San Antonio high school. "What you've got to decide is: Who do you want to hire?"
The Illinois senator touched down in Rhode Island -- his first campaign visit to the tiny state -- as well as Ohio.
Obama targeted Clinton with some of his harshest criticism of the campaign, knocking her for taking money from federal lobbyists, voting for "George Bush's war in Iraq" and voting for a bankruptcy bill that made it "harder for families to climb out of debt."
The three states and Vermont will vote Tuesday in contests that could effectively settle the Democratic fight.
In a campaign that has frequently defied expectations, a consensus emerged as the candidates caromed across the country: Clinton must win Texas and Ohio to have any serious hope of sustaining her bid to become the nation's first female president. A split decision would not suffice, analysts said, and winning narrowly may not help.
"We're reaching a point where -- not all voters, but lots of voters -- are starting to feel it's time for the party to coalesce around a candidate," said Geoffrey D. Garin, a veteran Democratic pollster who is nonaligned in the contest. "The Clinton campaign has to have a compelling and persuasive reason to go on. . . . She's got to come out of Tuesday with people believing that she has a realistic path to the nomination."
The political math seems to work against the former front-runner. Obama has opened a small-but-growing lead of delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Unless Clinton starts winning big -- and polling in Texas and Ohio suggests that will be difficult -- she could have a tough time overtaking Obama.
"We have to maintain our delegate lead and make sure that we don't get blown out in those two states," Obama told reporters this week as he campaigned across Texas. "If we come out of the four contests on Tuesday with a gap in the delegate count of 100 or 150, which we have right now, then I continue to believe that we will go to the convention with the most earned delegates, and believe that we should be the nominee."
