But Hillary  carried on the padded shoulders of the older women in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island who loved her “I Will Survive” rallying cry that “I am a little older and I have earned every wrinkle on my face”  has been saved to fight another day.

Exit polls have showed that fans of Hillary  who once said they would be happy with Obama if Hillary dropped out  were hardening in their opposition to him, while Obama voters were not so harsh about her.

Three Hillary volunteers, older women from Boston, approached a New York Times reporter in an Austin, Tex., parking lot on Tuesday to vent that Hillary hasn’t gotten a fair shake from the press. They said that they used to like Obama but now can’t stand him because they think he has been cocky and disrespectful to Hillary.

As Hillary, remarkably and cleverly, put Obama on the defensive about a real estate deal, health care and Nafta, her campaign ratcheted up the retro battle of the sexes when they sent Dianne Feinstein onto the Fox News Sunday-morning talk show to promote the idea that Hillary should not be forced out, regardless of the results of Tuesday’s primaries, simply because she’s a woman.

“For those of us that are part of ‘a woman need not apply’ generation that goes back to the time I went out to get my first job following college and a year of graduate work, this is an extraordinarily critical race,” the senator said.