Clinton Assembles Troops For Lone Star Showdown

"Bill Clinton has certainly got his problems, but that's no reason not to vote for the senator," Sheila Jackson Lee says to the young woman expressing some reservations about the senator's husband. At the Harris County, Texas Democratic Party Rally in Houston Saturday, Ms. Lee has just delivered some eloquent oratory -- the kind she's been providing, as a national co-chair of the Clinton Campaign, on the stump around the country. Now, however, in her role as congresswoman, she's mingling with her Houston constituents. This particular constituent --originally from either Russia or Ukraine by her accent -- is an inquirer and thinks that Obama is an impressive candidate, too; she can't make up her mind. Neither can the husband at her side. The couple has just heard the Ms. Lee speak in passing about her endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Now they want to know the reasons for her support. But Congresswoman Lee can't let go of the spouse issue. He's had his "disappointments," he's had his "troubles," she says, in mitigation of Bill Clinton's behavior. What exactly does she mean? This is unclear, for Ms. Lee, perhaps channeling a nineteenth-century novelist, is characterizing more of a mad spouse from Bronte than a politician from Trollope.