Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton proved again that she does her best work when her back is against the wall.
The former first lady won three of four voting contests on Tuesday, scoring big victories in Texas and Ohio and picking up tiny Rhode Island for good measure. She effectively halted Senator Barack Obama's seemingly unstoppable momentum, and can make a plausible case to carry on through Pennsylvania's primary on April 22.
Written off for dead just days ago, the former first lady hunkered down in Ohio and Texas and showed she knew how to fight. She took on Obama directly, questioning his qualifications to be commander in chief.
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
The former first lady justifiably basked in her wins on Tuesday -- her first after 11 searing losses to Obama since Feb. 5. But her momentum was set to collide with the reality of delegate math, and the persistent question of whether Clinton could ever close the gap with the Illinois senator among pledged delegates.
"I think it's still tough for her," Democratic strategist Bill Carrick said. "The Obama campaign was prepared for a long campaign from the beginning. They've mopped up in caucuses and have done a really good job pursuing delegates. Clinton has looked for a knockout blow and there hasn't been one and there isn't going to be one."
For now, the New York senator was having none of that.
"As Ohio goes, so goes the nation," Clinton told cheering supporters at a rally in Columbus, Ohio. "The nation is coming back and so is this campaign."
Obama, for his part, told supporters he would be the party's nominee regardless of Tuesday's outcome.
In a primary season notable for its prediction-defying twists and turns, Ohio and Texas pitted Obama's organizational muscle against Clinton's gamble that Democrats were not yet ready to dismiss her quest to be the first woman president.
Exit polls conducted for The Associated Press indicated many of the voters who had been drifting to Obama in recent primaries appeared to be returning to the Clinton fold in both Texas and Ohio.
Women came home to Clinton after weeks of disappointing her in other states. White women gave her a 20-percent margin over Obama in Texas, and more than a 2 to 1 margin in Ohio.
The former first lady was running strong among her base voters including whites of both sexes, older and less-educated voters, and union members. Obama, who is running to be the first black president, was winning nearly all the black vote as well as younger and more affluent voters.
In Texas, Clinton was winning two-thirds of the Hispanic vote, and Hispanics were voting in large numbers there. She was splitting white men with Obama, a group where he had been making inroads.
Still, both campaigns acknowledged that Clinton would lag well behind Obama among pledged delegates no matter what the outcome on Tuesday. In interviews, Clinton said she would make no decisions about the future of her campaign until after the latest votes were counted.
Until recently, few could envision a plausible path for Clinton to press on with her campaign without solid victories in Ohio and Texas. Former US president Bill Clinton, his wife's most prominent booster and surrogate, said as much last week.
Hillary Clinton remained remarkably resilient in the face of steep odds and a host of small and big humiliations, such as the defection of several "superdelegates," including her most prominent black supporter, Georgia Representative John Lewis, a civil rights icon.
Buoyed by the sudden influx of small donors who contributed an eye-popping US$35 million to her campaign last month, Clinton has kept up a relentless pace on the campaign trail while sharpening her criticism of Obama as being ill-prepared to serve as commander in chief.
Obama, for his part, has been forced onto the defensive over his relationship with a former political patron, Tony Rezko, who went on trial on Monday in Chicago on several felony fraud charges. The Illinois senator also faced grilling over whether a senior economic adviser told a representative of the Canadian government that Obama's recent tough talk on the North American Free Trade Agreement was nothing more than political rhetoric.
Clinton and her campaign team have even forced some public soul searching among the national media, after bitterly complaining that fawning media coverage has helped drive Obama's success.
But at her core, Clinton is a realist and most observers -- even those sympathetic to her quest -- said she would be loath to wage a fruitless battle if the results are anything less than a decisive game-changer that stops Obama's momentum. Many leading Democrats have also begun publicly expressing concern that a protracted nominating contest will divide the party and strengthen Republican chances in the general election.
But Jennifer Palmieri, a Democratic strategist who worked in the Clinton White House, said if the campaign does carry on through the next major primary in Pennsylvania on April 22, it could actually help the eventual nominee.
"I think continuing on for six more weeks could be good for the process," Palmieri said. "The nominee -- who I still think will probably be Barack Obama -- will come out much tougher."
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