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Needed Triumph

Clinton Campaign Revived in both Ohio and Texas

Throughout February, it looked as though Barack Obama was beginning to run away with the Democratic nomination. But after winning primaries in both Texas and Ohio on Tuesday, Clinton is back.

Back before Super Tuesday, it looked as though the Republicans were going to have a hard time choosing a presidential candidate. The field was crowded, three different candidates had won the first three contests, and others were lurking in the wings.

Fast forward a couple of months and it now looks as though it’s the Democrats that are nominationally challenged. In New York and Ohio on Tuesday, New York Senator Hillary Clinton roared back into the race after a string of 11 straight defeats to her opponent Barack Obama. In Texas, Clinton secured 51 percent of the vote with Obama coming in with 47 percent while in Ohio she came in 12 percentage points ahead of Obama with 55 percent of the vote. Prior to Tuesday's votes, her campaign had portrayed the states as must wins for her campaign. Clinton also won the primary in Rhode Island with Obama winning in Vermont.

“No candidate in recent history, Democratic or Republican, has won the White House without winning the Ohio primary,” Clinton said at a rally in Columbus, Ohio. “We all know that if we want a Democratic president, we need a Democratic nominee who can win Democratic states just like Ohio.”

On the Republican side, John McCain easily defeated his last remaining opponent Mike Huckabee in all four polls. Soon after the polls closed, Huckabee announced that he was withdrawing from the race and would throw his support behind the Senator from Arizona. McCain was set to fly to Washington on Wednesday morning to accept the endorsement of President George W. Bush, his bitter foe in the 2000 Republican primaries.

Despite Clinton's victory, Obama remains in the lead when it comes to delegates necessary to be chosen as the party's candidate. Indeed, the proportional method used by the Democrats to divvy up delegates means that Clinton's gains on Tuesday were modest at best.

Still, when it comes to momentum, the victories are a huge boost to a campaign that just days ago seemed on the verge of petering out. Obama's unbroken string of victories in states across the country since Super Tuesday on Feb. 5 had kept Obama in the headlines and made his eventual victory appear almost inevitable. Indeed, despite losing three of the four contests on Tuesday, Obama exuded confidence that he would come out on top as the Democrats' nominee.

"No matter what happens tonight," Obama said at a post vote rally in San Antonio, "we have nearly the same delegate lead that we did this morning and we are on our way to winning the nomination."

Clinton's comeback has come largely on the back of some tough campaigning against her rival from Illinois, having repeatedly called into question his ability to transform his rhetoric of change into action. In her victory speech in Ohio, she once again went after Obama, saying, "Americans don't need more promises. They've heard plenty of speeches. They deserve solutions and they deserve them now." The crowd chanted "Yes we will," seemingly mocking Obama's campaign motto "Yes we can."

Of particular importance for Clinton, her support among women in both Ohio and Texas was significantly higher than it has been in recent contests. In Texas, her lead over Obama among white women was 20 percent whereas in Ohio it was more than 2-to-1. She also did well among older voters and among blue collar workers, a voter base which supported her early in the campaign and has largely stuck with her throughout. She also appeared to have won some two-thirds of the Hispanic vote in Texas, a voter block which Obama has tried to make inroads on.

Still, Obama's campaign remains alive and well. Indeed, with Texas and Ohio out of the way, the chances for either campaign to land a knock-out blow against the other have diminished significantly. The next primaries are on Saturday in Wyoming and Tuesday in Mississippi, with the next large one -- in Pennsylvania -- not scheduled until the latter half of April.

The Democrats, in short, will not be able to turn their attention to battling against the Republicans until later in the year. McCain, on the other hand, has a bit of a breather during which he will try to gather a fractured Republican Party behind his campaign. Indeed, his trip to Washington on Wednesday is an early step on that road. He has also begun getting out his general election message, giving hints as to how he will campaign against whoever emerges out of the Democratic camp.

"Now, we begin the most important part of our campaign," he said on Tuesday night after Huckabee bowed out. "To make a respectful, determined and convincing case to the American people that our campaign and my election as president, given the alternatives presented by our friends in the other party, are in the best interests of the country we love."

He also provided a sneak peak at how he might go after the Democrats. "I will leave it to my opponent to propose returning to the failed, big-government mandates of the '60s and '70s to address problems such as the lack of health care insurance for some Americans," he said, echoing a common Republican strategy of accusing Democrats of wanting to expand the influence of the federal government in Washington.

But even as McCain starts down the general election road, the Democrats, despite the ongoing confusion as to who will represent the party in November, remain confident. "I think continuing on for six more weeks could be good for the process," Jennifer Palmieri, a Democratic strategist who worked in the Clinton White House, told the Associated Press. "The nominee, who I still think will probably be Barack Obama, will come out much tougher."

cgh/ap/reuters