DaytonDailyNews.com

COLUMBUS — — Until Hillary Clinton came along, Dawn Bauereis hadn't been involved in a presidential campaign for 28 years.

Bauereis, 42, of Kettering, plunged into the deep end on Clinton's behalf.

"My goodness," said Bauereis, a nursing student. "We made phone calls ... We went door-to-door. We made signs and we held signs up at intersections," said Bauereis.

The results weren't any better for Bauereis this time than they were in 1980 when, as a student at Patterson Co-Op High School in Dayton, she worked on Democrat Jimmy Carter's unsuccessful re-election campaign.

It's been a week since Clinton suspended her history-making campaign and endorsed Barack Obama. Whether Bauereis and millions of other Clinton supporters like her follow Clinton and get behind Obama could determine whether the Illinois senator wins the presidency.

Bauereis has made the switch.

"President Clinton to President Barack Obama," she said. "I'm going to wholeheartedly support him and get behind him and do whatever I can."

Bauereis, however, is just part of the still unfolding story. The feeling that Clinton got sexist treatment from the news media and from her own fellow Democrats has enraged supporters like Cynthia Ruccia and Marilu Sochor, both from suburban Columbus.

They're voting for Republican John McCain and are using their Web site, Women for Fair Politics (womenforfairpolitics.com) to protest the treatment they say Clinton received.

"We should have gotten up and said something much earlier," said Ruccia, who has been active in the Democratic Party and has run for Congress.

She called her support for McCain a "protest vote."

What good would a Democratic administration be if "they're going to look away and say it's OK to denigrate 51 percent of our country?" she asked.

There's a middle ground between Bauereis, Ruccia and Sochor but it's probably not a real comfortable place for Obama right now.

That's where Lana Moresky from suburban Cleveland finds herself. Moresky was more than a supporter. She also was a major Clinton fundraiser in Ohio, raising an estimated half million dollars. Obama needs helps from Moresky and others like her for the campaign ahead against McCain.

"I will vote for him (Obama)," said Moresky.

But how much more will she do?

"Right now, I'm very tired. I'm exhausted and I'm taking a break," she said. She said how long her break will last will depend on what kind of respect Clinton gets from Obama and party leaders.

Political scientist Karen Dawisha from Miami University in Oxford has been monitoring the campaign and believes that both Clinton and Obama have received unfair treatment.

The media framed Clinton's campaign in a gendered way and Obama was framed in a racial way, as a black candidate, she said.

"I started out as an Obama supporter," she said. Then she became worried by his lack of experience.

"I switched to Hillary... I will vote for Obama," said Dawisha, director of the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies.

Despite the treatment Clinton received, women shouldn't be cynical, Dawisha said. She was struck by how Clinton looked at things in her concession speech.

"Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it," Clinton said.

"I really think that's true," Dawisha said.

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