Victories will buy Clinton time, but math hurdle still formidable

After 12 straight losses, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's victories in Ohio and Texas primaries Tuesday night shook off the vapors of impending defeat, showing that despite his delegate lead, she could still beat Sen. Barack Obama in the big states.

Ohio and Texas were two battlegrounds where Obama was going to put away the last opponent to his history-making nomination, finally delivering on his message of hope while dashing the hopes of an extended Clinton presidential dynasty.

Yet then the excited, divided American electorate weighed in once more, handing Clinton victories that resuscitated her candidacy just as it seemed to be in its death throes.

For Clinton, the battle ahead is not so much against Obama as it is against a Democratic Party establishment that once appeared ready to coalesce behind her. The party wants a standard-bearer now to wage the war against the newly minted leader of the Republicans, Sen. John McCain, who sealed his party's nomination with a rout over Mike Huckabee on Tuesday.

According to Clinton advisers, victories in Ohio and Texas were enough to keep her in the race at least through Pennsylvania's April 22 primary, even if Obama has more delegates.

Obama, meanwhile, appeared likely to accumulate enough delegates from Texas and Ohio, as well as from his victory in Vermont, to strengthen his mathematical edge and portray Clinton anew as a spoiler blocking his road to the nomination. Yet the results Tuesday also bring fresh questions about his electability in key swing states like Ohio that Democrats are eager to carry in the November general election.

"Hillary is very much in the game," Patti Solis Doyle, Clinton's former campaign manager, said Tuesday night.

Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama, was brimming with equal brio.

"This was her last, best chance to significantly close the gap in pledged delegates," Burton said of Clinton, who began the night with about 50 fewer pledged delegates and 100 fewer overall.

Clinton spent much of 2007 running as the candidate of that Democratic establishment — racking up endorsements from party leaders, enlisting major party donors from past presidential campaigns, and setting up bases of operations in the most populous states.

Clinton has been enjoying her first real burst of momentum lately, thanks to her new advertisements and speeches questioning Obama's abilities in a crisis, raising the fact that he has not convened his Senate subcommittee to hold hearings on the Afghanistan war. A potentially embarrassing trial of a former Obama friend and contributor has just begun. And major Clinton fundraisers say her big victories Tuesday would be enough to energize her donor base and keep money flowing in.

"The roller coaster is real in politics, and you're seeing it play out in this race," said Jonathan Mantz, the national finance director of the Clinton campaign. "Each time people think we're down like after Iowa, or South Carolina, or the February primaries, Hillary has found ways to come back up."

And consider this: Clinton has not only won the powerhouse Democratic states of California, New Jersey and New York, but also crucial swing states in a general election — a major one, Ohio, and other key battlegrounds including Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire and New Mexico.

Still, for all the millions of votes Clinton has won, simple math is still her enemy. She now needs to use Tuesday night to persuade superdelegates — the hundreds of party leaders who have a vote on the nomination — to stop abandoning her for Obama. But it is not clear if her performances in Ohio and Texas were enough to give Clinton — a politician who has been a known quantity for 16 years now — a real chance for a fresh assessment before superdelegates flee her.

"She is not running against Obama or the party so much right now but the clock," said Dan Gerstein, a Democratic strategist who supports Obama. "The math is such that she can't win by conventional means."

Her best shot, Gerstein and independent analysts argued, is that her new victories will give superdelegates pause concerning Obama long enough for Clinton to damage him with a line of attack, goad him into making a colossal gaffe (or watch him make one on his own) or rely on the media to unearth a race-altering scandal about him.

"The great irony is, she is now the 'hope' candidate — she can only hope to catch some breaks and catch Obama stumbling," Gerstein said.