Clinton counting on female power to energize her faltering presidential bid

Fighting to survive, Hillary Rodham Clinton is counting on female power to energize her faltering presidential bid.

"I am thrilled to be running to be the first woman president, which I think would be a sea change in our country and around the world," the New York senator said this week in Cleveland, emphasizing anew the pioneering aspect of her candidacy.

A woman in the White House, Clinton said, would present "a real challenge to the way things have been done, and who gets to do them and what the rules are."

The remarks had a call-to-action flair and underscored just how much she is relying on women to help her win Ohio and, perhaps, Texas on Tuesday as she seeks to get back on track in the Democratic nomination fight.

Women may hold the key for Clinton, particularly in Ohio, where polls show her with a wide advantage -- 17 percentage points in one poll, 18 in another. She also leads among Texas women, but the margin is slimmer.

"If Hillary is going to regain the front-runner status and win the nomination, it starts with and ends with women," said Jenny Backus, a Democratic strategist not aligned with either candidate.

Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton both just ended a record-breaking month of fundraising, bringing in more than $80 million combined, but with Obama again raising significantly more than Clinton.

In a remarkable financial recovery, Clinton raised $35 million in February, more than doubling her January fundraising, when she collected $14 million to Obama's $36 million.

For Obama, the unprecedented sum underscores the challenge in his decision whether to accept public financing for the general election, something he indicated last year he would do if the Republican nominee also did it. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, has criticized Obama for wavering on the issue.

Texans have never seen anything like this stampede to the polls. Through Wednesday, in the state's 15 most populous counties, 805,000 people have already voted, compared with 169,000 for the same period in 2004, according to Secretary of State Phil Wilson. Of those, 601,000 have been Democrats.

If the same level of enthusiasm holds true through Tuesday, Wilson projected, 3.3 million people will eventually vote in the primary, easily surpassing the record of more than 2.7 million in 1988 when native son George H.W. Bush was in the race.

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader selected Matt Gonzalez, a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, to be his running mate. The Texas-born Gonzalez said he recognized the difficulties of winning the presidential election. "I have no illusions about what's happening here today," he said. "But let me also say that I've never entered a political contest with the idea that it couldn't be won."