I think it’s an accurate analogy: Texas could be Hillary’s last stand.

This race is remarkable when it comes to both campaigns playing up or playing down expectations. For weeks the Clinton camp watered down the significance of Obama’s 11 straight primary/caucus wins by essentially saying, hold on, our chips are on Ohio and Texas. For months, Clinton enjoyed a huge lead in both states. But like the ultimate demise of Rudy Giuliani, who put all his chips on Florida, the Clinton campaign underestimated the perception of loss.

The public doesn’t care about political strategy… (only us political junkies do.) People catch on when your campaign loses 11 straight contests… after all, it’s on the front page of every newspaper and magazine the day after. Even if your only interaction with politics is reading the newspaper headline the day after, your perception of the race is changed. If hypothetical headline read, “Obama Wins Texas” and the sub headline was “Clinton wins more delegates” –a very sizable portion of the public would walk away with the perception that Obama won decisively. The bottom line: perception matters. You can’t pull a Giulianiesque strategy of wait and hold, I’ll just keep losing these states, and not expect to come out damaged.

And that has been a consistent theme in this campaign. Late decider’s vote for Obama… possibly because they’ve been so swept up by the momentum in his campaign. On the reverse, we found that a good majoirty of early absentee ballots in early states were cast for Clinton. If you decide on election day, stastistically, you’re more likely to vote Obama. For the reason outlined above, Hillary has the stench of defeat on her.

In 72 hours the people of Rhode Island, Texas, Ohio and Vermont will vote in what is being dubbed, “Mini Super-Tuesday.” Lets be honest, Clinton is expected to win Rhode Island, Obama is expected to win Vermont and the remaining 398 delegates will be decided in Texas & Ohio.

The Clinton campaign did not anticipate a primary fight beyond February 5th. They didn’t research Texas’ “primacaucus” system, nor did they realize that Texas’ funky proportionment rules favor Obama because they award inner cities more delegates as opposed to the rural, Hispanic-dominated regions of the state. The fact that Texas has 1/3 of it’s overall delegates awarded via caucus after a primary vote also favors Obama. Consistently he has won caucuses, and his supporters are more enthusiastic.

Again, the bottom line: it’s very possible that Clinton could win the popular vote in Texas, but Obama could walk away with more delegates.

So the Clinton camp is desperate. Hillary made an appearance on SNL last night, and she will be on the Daily Show tonight. And finally this, which I admit kind of angered me. Her “manual” of sorts, or instructions, for how Clinton supporters should behave themselves in tomorrow’s Texas caucus:

The materials say in part, “DO NOT allow the supporter of another candidate to serve in leadership roles.”

It goes on to say, “If our supporters are outnumbered, ask the Temporary Chair if one of our supporters can serve as the Secretary, in the interest of fairness.

“The control of the sign-in sheets and the announcement of the delegates allotted to each candidate are the critical functions of the Chair and Secretary. This is why it is so important that Hillary supporters hold these positions.”