The demographics of Texas have been sliced and diced by the analysts and pollsters – from the Hispanic to the black vote, to the generational divide, to urban vs East Texas vs South Texas. In the final showdown on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton’s fortunes in Texas will rise or fall on her strength with women. It’s up to the Old Girl Network.

Clinton knows it and she’s been playing to her strength, particularly in the last few days. At a recent rally here, after she stopped speaking, the loudspeaker blared the old anthem “Nine to Five,” recalling the days when women’s equality was not where it is today.

At her rally in Fair Park Saturday, the crowd roared when a speaker announced that a high percent of early voter were women over 50. That’s her base. While this primary has produced record-breaking early voting, due in large measure to Obama-mania and interest by non-traditional voters, 69 percent of the early vote was cast by people older than age 40 and 41 percent of the votes were from older women.

Barack Obama’s appeal has been strongest with people younger than 40 and, according to pollster John Zogby, Obama leads among young voters, men and blacks, and holds almost 60 percent support in Houston and Dallas. Clinton is known to be a polarizing figure for men, and Obama has generational appeal to young women, who are excited about the hopefulness and idealism of his candidacy.

The workhorses for Hillary are women of her age group, who have bumped against the glass ceiling, the single mothers and grandmothers who have struggled to support families, the feminists who fought yesterday’s battle. They’re working. For example, former Ambassador and Dallas politico Kathryn Hall is hosting Gloria Steinem for a lunch Monday for women supporters who commit to bringing one undecided woman with them.

Brandishing her female credentials, Clinton told voters at a Fair Park rally Saturday that they need “someone with experience cleaning house. It took a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush,” she said. Then she urged supporters to “grab your brooms, mops and vacuum cleaners and come on up and help me out.”

Hot pink flyers called on Texas women to “stand up” for Hillary. “We need you to reach out to your networks, your friends, sisters, daughters, granddaughters, mothers, grandmothers, neighbors, and colleagues” and get them to vote for her and then join the “Biggest Girl’s Night Out in Texas history” by going to caucuses.

While most of the polls are showing a slight Obama lead in Texas, anecdotal evidence suggests a late surge by the Clinton campaign in their precinct organizing efforts and the realization by some women that this may be the only chance in their lifetime to see a woman president.

To be sure, Clinton’s strength with women has eroded over the course of the campaign. An AP-Ipsos poll in December showed her with 52 percent support of women compared to 19 percent for Obama, while exit polls from the AP and TV networks from 22 Democratic primaries show that lead to be down to 51 percent to 45 percent. Obama split the female vote with her in Wisconsin. In Texas and Ohio, she’s playing the gender card in an effort to get women back. Ohio polls give her a double-digit lead among women.

Clinton has been telling audiences that a woman in the White House would present “a real challenge to the way things have been done, and who gets to do them and what the rules are.”

In Texas, it will take a strong coalition of Hispanic voters and older women to blunt Obama’s appeal to blacks, the youth and unlikely voters. According to some news reports, young Hispanic leaders in the Valley have jumped on the Obama bandwagon. Women, with their brooms and mops and vacuum cleaners, will have to pick up the slack.

Some Dallas women I know who vote Democratic are lining up with Obama because they feel he has the best chance in November. But another one told me, “I’ve been back and forth and back and forth and it’s finally come down to this – the Old Girls’ Network.”

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