Poll Shows Small Swing in Clinton's Favor
19:15 CET, March, 4 2008
The latest opinion polls show Barack Obama losing ground to Hillary Clinton in Texas and Ohio. The New York senator has reversed her rival's lead in the south and has pulled even at the other end of the country.
Texan Republican Dan Branch said: "Obama mania has been going on in parts of the country because I think there's a real thirst for change. It may go back to the fact that he's really the only candidate left standing, the only credible candidate that's new, completely new. I mean Senator McCain has been around and Ms Clinton has been around."
Texan Democrat Domingo Garcia says, ironically, Obama has the current president to thank for his popularity: "The American public has got so fed up after eight years of George Bush and Republican leadership that now the pendulum is swinging to the left.
"That's the only way I can imagine that a man named Obama, who four years ago most Americans had never even heard of, is on the verge of winning the Democratic nomination."
Campaigning in Ohio, Clinton appeared to have struck a chord with workers in the recession-hit state.
One factory worker said: "I believe what she says more than the other ones and I feel more secure with her than ther others. I don't know how it would work having a female - nothing against them but..."
A woman who works in a local hospital added: "She would do a very good job and we need a woman in there who knows about women's issues."
One of her colleagues said: "Obama's got a little more charisma. I think he's winning the ladies over with that."
Although Clinton's campaign may be helped by an advert by actor Jack Nicholson that pulled in over a million hits on the internet over the weekend.