She’s B-a-a-ck

The feeling was palpable. As voters headed to the polls on Tuesday, members of the Clinton campaign cast off the hangdog expressions they'd been wearing for weeks. Suddenly they were smiling, laughing, and—gasp!—serving reporters midflight mimosas aboard Air Hillary. Their candidate had predicted success in both Texas and Ohio in conversation with the press corps Tuesday morning, and key staffers had a feeling she would deliver.

They were right. Making the most of a two-week lull in the run-up to the March 4 voting, and penetrating the previously impermeable bubble surrounding Democratic rival Barack Obama in ways that resonated with late-deciding voters, Clinton scored back-from-the-grave wins in three of the four contests Tuesday evening. The second Clinton to bear the mantle "comeback kid" may still face daunting odds in amassing sufficient pledged delegates to clinch the nomination. But Wednesday morning she was clearly relishing the fight, feistily suggesting that Democrats might yet realize their hopes of a dream ticket of Obama—with her on top.

After a blitz of morning talk shows—hitting all three major networks, as well as Fox, CNN and MSNBC—Clinton plans to take the rest of Wednesday off, welcome news to a traveling press corps struggling to keep up with the campaign's withering pace. But it will be a short respite. Her campaign wasted no time laying the groundwork for the next big showdown, in delegate-rich Pennsylvania on April 22. (Obama is expected to prevail in Wyoming this Saturday, as well as in Mississippi next Tuesday.) Clinton enjoys the support of Pennsylvania's popular governor, Ed Rendell, and is hoping that his endorsement can do for her in the Keystone State what the backing of Gov. Ted Strickland delivered in Ohio: a resounding win. Midmorning Wednesday, Rendell issued a statement hinting at the demographic similarities between the two states. Both have suffered heavy losses of manufacturing jobs; in the steel towns of western Pennsylvania, where Clinton will no doubt camp out over the next six weeks, the economic outlook is especially bleak. "The people of Pennsylvania are focused on the two largest issues facing our nation: the state of our economy and national security," Rendell's statement said. "On both counts, Pennsylvanians understand how important it is to elect someone who is truly ready to become President and Commander-in-Chief … The people of Pennsylvania will send a clear message: we want a president who is ready, not one we hope will one day be ready." Rendell hit all of the Clinton campaign's talking points, taking care to mention that Clinton won "despite all of the glowing press coverage [that Obama] received leading up to March 4th."

Blaming the press is a time-honored strategy in campaign politics. But it may be an especially important one for Clinton going forward. It allows her to attack Obama indirectly—without suffering the blowback that direct hits on Obama seem to have generated to date. Then again, the Clinton forces may feel as though they've finally managed to break through with some head-on attacks that actually scored points. Emboldened by the surge of late-deciders to her column Tuesday night, her strategists are likely to continue hammering away at Obama's ties to embattled fund-raiser Tony Rezko (with whom Obama did a land deal unrelated to the fraud charges Rezko is now contesting in court) and an Obama aide's apparent suggestion to Canadian diplomats that the Illinois senator was merely posturing in his criticism of NAFTA (a contention Obama's aides deny).

Mark Penn and Harold Ickes, Clinton's top strategists, sent out a memo at 7:30 Wednesday morning under the subject heading "The Path to the Presidency." They assert that Clinton has reclaimed the momentum in the race to the nomination and note that Obama outspent Clinton in Texas and Ohio by a 2-to-1 margin. "Voters in both states agreed that Hillary Clinton would be the best Commander-in-Chief and the strongest steward of our economy," the memo says. "In fact, according to last night's polls, those who decided who to vote for in the last three days overwhelmingly favored Hillary … It's time for a second look." The memo argues, as Clinton did last night, that Ohio is a bellwether state. It notes that the race is still very close, alleging that after 41 primaries and caucuses, "the delegate count is within roughly two percent." Penn and Ickes also reiterated an argument they've been making for weeks now: their candidate has won "core battleground states" from New Jersey to Ohio. They include Michigan and Florida on that list, even though those states were uncontested, owing to a Democratic National Committee sanction imposed after both moved their primaries up on the calendar, against the national party's wishes.

And the Clinton team once again warned that Obama is unprepared for the sort of scorched-earth tactics he would face were he to go up against John McCain, who clinched the GOP nomination Tuesday night. "The vetting of Obama has just begun," the memo says. "If the primary contest ends prematurely and Obama is the nominee, Democrats may have a nominee who will be a lightning rod of controversy." Cue the thunder. It's going to be a stormy couple of months.

© 2008