The Hildabeast survives

New York Times reported 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.

Is Vermont still a part of the US? I heard they were going to secede and join Canada. But maybe they heard about the long waits for their free health care, and decided to stay here.

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. But by winning decisively in Ohio earlier in the night, Mrs. Clinton was able to deliver a televised victory speech in time for the late-night news. And the result there allowed her to cast Tuesday as the beginning of a comeback even though she stood a good chance of gaining no ground against Mr. Obama in the hunt for delegates.

She is not worried about elected delegates. She wants to be in a position to make a case to the Super Delegates that they should back her over Obama, regardless of whether he has more elected delegates than she does, and she does not care what the people that voted for Obama think. She is foolish enough to think she can smash the Obamamessiah and that they will accept her as his replacement, and adore her like they do him.

Jonathan Alter from Newsweek complains about Hillary’s Math Problem - Forget tonight. She could win 16 straight and still lose.

It all depends on the Super Delegates.

CNN worries Did Limbaugh influence Democratic race? ... Early exit polling shows 10 percent of the voters in Ohio's Democratic Primary identified themselves as Republican, along with 22 percent who said they were independents. It was the same story in Texas: 10 percent of the voters in the Democratic primary identified themselves as Republican, along with 25 percent who said they were independents.

CNN has good reason to worry, because this means Limbaugh may be able to get Conservatives to back McCain in the General Election.

David Weigel of trumpets Paul Triumphs, Clinton Endures, Mike Huckabee Splatters Against the Wall.

A catchy title, but most of the piece is just about Paul retaining his seat in Congress. So what?

Ed Morrissey blogged A funny thing happened on the way to Obama’s coronation, however — suddenly people started treating him as a candidate rather than a secular messiah, and Obama displayed a surprising glass jaw.

Now he faces an unexpected stumble, losing three of four primaries after a string of victories that should have convinced people the primaries were over. He has to fight a two-front war while both Hillary and John McCain work in parallel to derail him:

Even before the polls opened, campaign officials were dreading an outcome that would keep Clinton (D-N.Y.) in the race at least through the Pennsylvania primary on April 22. Those seven weeks will cost Obama at least $10 million, and possibly much more, campaign aides say, as he battles a rejuvenated Clinton who will have every incentive to try to force him into a major mistake.

... So what’s changed? Hillary Clinton decided to go negative over the past two weeks. Everyone expected her to do it, but no one knew it would be as effective as it has been. Many analysts wrote it off as a desperation tactic, and that had some truth to it; if she had been winning some of the states in February, she likely wouldn’t have risked it. However, Obama has some glaring deficiencies, and Hillary’s team has managed to highlight them without alienating voters, who generally like Obama.

Even then, it wouldn’t have mattered if Obama had handled the negative campaigning with any kind of aplomb. Instead, his campaign made a serious unforced error over NAFTA and essentially got caught in a series of lies over their outreach to Canadian diplomats. That undermined Obama’s political integrity, his greatest asset. He also got caught up in the expected media feast of the Tony Rezko trial, an opporunity for the press to look a little more like journalists than hagiographers.

And how did Obama react? He blew up during a Texas press conference heavily attended by Chicago journalists. He stormed off after only eight questions regarding the contacts between his campaign and Canadian diplomats over NAFTA and the Rezko trial. The national press had already been grumbling about his insularity, and Obama gave them an excuse to write reams of material about it, Rezko, and the NAFTA dance.

In short, Obama has exposed himself as a seriously inexperienced and flawed candidate. He hasn’t really been tested until now, and the glass jaw he showed in the first few days of the real bout must have the party establishment worried about a lengthy battle against either Hillary or McCain. Against both, he may soon flounder — and that slim lead in pledged delegates will not present much of an obstacle to bypassing him in Denver.