There was a point, about a week ago, at which Barack Obama looked like an unstoppable force. Hillary Clinton’s double-digit leads in Ohio and Texas had evaporated; Obama, the winner of 11 consecutive contests was drawing the biggest primary crowds anyone had ever seen; superdelegates were lining up behind him in greater numbers, and all evidence pointed to a demoralized Clinton campaign staff, some of which was heading home early every night rather than endure additional frustration. Hell, Mark Penn was publicly distancing himself from the campaign he’s helping run.
The Democratic Party had begun to look at Barack Obama as the party’s presidential nominee. For that matter, so had the Republican Party and John McCain, who had begun to transition to a general-election style campaign.
But as has often been the case in this cycle, actual voters weren’t quite ready to embrace the narrative. The Clinton campaign circled March 4 on the calendar a month ago, and the firewall strategy paid dividends.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton defeated Senator Barack Obama in the Ohio and Texas primaries on Tuesday, ending a string of defeats and allowing her to soldier on in a Democratic presidential nomination race that now seems unlikely to end any time soon.
Mrs. Clinton also won Rhode Island, while Mr. Obama won in Vermont. But the results mean that Mrs. Clinton won the two states she most needed to keep her candidacy alive. Her victory in Texas was razor thin and came early Wednesday morning after most Americans had gone to bed.
With just about all the precincts reporting, Clinton beat Obama in Ohio, 54% to 44%. Her margin in Rhode Island was even bigger, 58% to 40%. In the Texas primary, the race was more competitive, with Clinton winning 51% to 47%, while in the Texas caucuses, with only about a third of the results available, Obama leads, 52% to 48%. Obama’s margin in Vermont, meanwhile, was pretty huge — 60% to 38%.
Clinton excelled in large part by winning back some of the constituencies that had begun to jump to Obama — exit polls showed Clinton winning big among women, Hispanic voters, white voters who don’t have a college education, and the elderly. Obama won blacks, more educated voters, younger voters, and those who consider the war in Iraq their top issue.
As decisive as Clinton’s impressive victories were, her campaign’s delegate problem remains a very awkward hurdle.
This is, of course, not a state-by-state race, but rather, a race for delegates. And on that score, Clinton made little progress yesterday.
Bill Burton, an Obama spokesman, brimmed with equal brio. “This was her last, best chance to significantly close the gap in pledged delegates,” Mr. Burton said of Mrs. Clinton, who began the night with about 50 fewer pledged delegates and 100 fewer over all. “They have failed.” […]
But for all the millions of votes Mrs. Clinton has now won, simple math is still her enemy.
That’s undoubtedly true. Clinton has changed the momentum of the race, and has clearly bought herself some more time on the campaign trail, but the cold, hard numbers haven’t changed much at all. Indeed, in some ways, they’re worse, given that Clinton is running out of time (and states) to catch Obama in the overall delegate count.
Obama started the day with a lead in pledged delegates of about 159. There were, however, 370 pledged delegates at stake yesterday. How did Clinton do at narrowing the gap? By one count, she may have won a net gain of one vote. By some estimations, she may not have even won that much.
Notwithstanding the shift in momentum and the P.R. victory tonight’s results hand Hillary, it’s possible that she’ll finish the night without cutting into Obama’s delegate lead at all….
[I]f Obama manages to win delegates out of Texas (thanks to the caucuses) that offset Hillary’s Ohio delegate gain, she could end the night in pretty much the same position as she was in yesterday, at least as far as the pledged delegate count is concerned.
She won big victories tonight, no question, but it’s unclear yet whether the shift in narrative she’ll enjoy will transform the race’s stubborn underlying dynamic in any significant way.
Given the complexities of the process, it’s even possible, hard as it may be to believe, that when the dust settles on the March 4 contests, Obama may have lost three out of four contests, and managed to gain delegates — proving, once again, that this is a very silly process in need of reform.
So, what’s the bottom line? Clinton did exactly what she had to do to keep the race going, and delivered big wins with her back against the wall. The road between her and the nomination, however, remains long and circuitous.
Obama, meanwhile, may have the numbers on his side, but he had a chance to end this contest yesterday, and he couldn’t close the deal. Can he fight back and retake control? We’re about to find out.