Vote Early, Hillary Urges Texans

Vote early. That's Hillary Clinton's campaign drumbeat in Texas, where starting yesterday and continuing until three days before the March 4 primary, Lone Star voters are allowed to mark their ballots at special locations in their counties.

Ace Smith, Clinton's Texas state director, says the campaign has launched an aggressive effort to get out the early vote: It has "vote early" ads up featuring Henry Cisneros, head of Housing and Urban Development during Bill Clinton's administration, and early-voting operations in every county. The campaign is claiming 100,000 volunteers in Texas and 4,000 precinct captains--nearly halfway, Smith says, to the goal of captains in all of the state's 8,300 precincts.

With Clinton's demoralizing losses yesterday in Hawaii and Wisconsin and the latest polls showing that Barack Obama has closed the gap in Texas, the ground game--including getting out the early vote--will no doubt take on a new intensity.

— Liz Halloran