Political Snapshot

Uncertainties Mark Clinton’s Itinerary

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(Via New York Times.)

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is bracing for one of the most difficult days of her presidential race on Wednesday, anticipating new pressure to quit the race and facing a set of financial and logistical decisions that will determine just how robust a campaign she can continue to wage against Sen. Barack Obama, according to several advisers and political allies.

And that is only for starters, these people say: After her narrow win in the Indiana primary and steep loss in North Carolina, working off a few hours of sleep, Mrs. Clinton is also bound to think over a question in her own head and to hear it from at least some supporters — should she continue running?

The advisers and allies to Mrs. Clinton said in interviews on Tuesday night that her victory in Indiana — even by less than 2 percentage points — made it less certain that she would withdraw from the race. (Her advisers had said a loss would likely lead her to quit.) Yet these supporters said that North Carolina had come to be seen as a major test in the eyes of the Clintons and their aides, and the severity of her loss to Mr. Obama there was dispiriting.

They were also girding for the possibility of more bad news. Her campaign is deep in debt and believed to be near broke, and her advisers made the unusual move on Tuesday night of refusing to confirm or deny whether Mrs. Clinton had made a loan to her campaign to keep it afloat. She made such a loan, of $5 million, in January, and she pleaded for donations in her televised primary night remarks on Tuesday, even reminding people that they could donate on her Web site.

Full story here.