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Clinton's Win in Texas & Ohio Means Game On...and On and On

She pulled the rabbit out of the hat. Came through in the eleventh hour. Turned the tide. Demonstrated she's her own Comeback Kid.

All these statements are clichés, but there's nothing clichéd about Hillary Clinton's wins in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island yesterday. She broke Obama's winning streak and revived her campaign.

And now we're all in it for the long haul, at least until April 22 and Pennsylvania's primary.

Even I said she wouldn't make it, and I was proven wrong.

Good for Hillary.

Clearly, calls for her to step down were premature.

Despite news reports anticipating Clinton would meet her Waterloo on March 4, older women came out and supported Clinton in large enough numbers to make a difference.

Say what you will, you can't keep a good woman down, especially when she's made up her mind about a candidate and votes regardless of polls, predictions, and pundit put-downs. In voting, just like in life, she goes on even when she's told her efforts are useless. In this case, how fortunate that neither the candidate nor her supporters listened.

Emily Douglas, writing at RH Reality Check, posted "Epic Showdown Not Going Away" at 12:28 am this morning:

"You have to admire the gumption of Hillary Clinton," said Jeffrey Toobin, citing her cliff-edge recovery from two and now perhaps, just perhaps, three "political near-death experiences."...

[I]n Columbus....Clinton addressed [her audience]: “For everyone in America who has been counted out but refused to be knocked out, and for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you!"...

It's a rare occasion that a Clinton speech causes my heart to thud more heavily than an Obama speech, but tonight is one of those times.

A few pundits have used the "mo-" word for Clinton - some say she has it, some say she doesn't, and still others point out that momentum or no momentum, delegate counts don't lie.

And what about those delegate counts, and more important, super-delegates?

On the Today show this morning, NBC's Meredith Viera pointed out to Clinton, "But the voters are saying at least in the exit polls that the super-delegates should choose the candidate with the most pledged delegates - that to do otherwise would suggest stealing the nomination."

Clinton spoke to Viera's comments and made the case for why she believes she will go on to win:

"Well of course that's not the way the process works. It's never worked that way.

People are super- delegates for a purpose. They are to exercise independent judgment and it's very important they exercise that judgment based on what they believe will lead to the best nominee....

This campaign is evolving. New questions are being raised. New challenges are being put to my opponent.

Super-delegates are supposed to take all that information on board and they're supposed to be exercising the judgment that people would have exercised if this information and challenges had been available several months ago. That's why we have super-delegates....

The voters have said by more than 2 to 1 they want this to go on, and they want it to go on because they want to be sure we pick the nominee who is best able to win.

And you know in recent history, no one has ever been elected president who did not win their party's primary in Ohio.

Ohio is the bellwether state. If you cannot win Ohio, you cannot win the presidency.

Is Clinton right about the function of super-delegates?

About.com's Kathy Gill explains in US Politics, "Super-delegates are designed to act as a check on ideologically extreme or inexperienced candidates. It also gives power to people who have a vested interested in party policies: elected leaders."

For more on super-delegates - and the number up for grabs in 2008 as well as current tallies - see "What Are Super-Delegates?"

Photo © Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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