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She Lives!Clinton has come back, but has she come back far enough?

By John DickersonPosted Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 12:58 AM ET

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On NAFTA, Obama helped Clinton throw him off message on an important issue. Clinton picked up on a news report that claimed Obama's chief economics adviser had back-channel discussions with Canadian officials to let them know Obama's opposition to NAFTA was merely political posturing. Obama's denials about the meeting turned out to be inoperative, and his aides then issued parsing denials. Though the story was not as explosive as first reported, there was more to it than the campaign let on. The behavior looked like old-fashioned political ass-covering, not the new kind of transparency Obama has been promising for the last year. It also seemed odd that Obama, who has promised to have full C-SPAN coverage of his administration's hearings, would keep the aide closeted from facing questions from the press corps.

Did Clinton's children-in-peril ad pay off? Even before the results were in on Tuesday, it seemed to. As late as 3:30 p.m. on Election Day, the Obama campaign held a conference call to push back hard against it. Greg Craig, an Obama supporter but longtime Clinton friend and Bill Clinton's lawyer during his impeachment trial, unloaded on Clinton. Saying that she would "do anything to win this nomination," Craig repeatedly asserted that she had failed her "commander-in-chief test" multiple times with respect to the Iraq war.

Exit polls don't give clear evidence that the ad paid off. When voters were asked which candidate was the most qualified to be commander in chief, Clinton won 54 percent to 40 percent in areas of Texas where the ad ran, but Clinton has always done well on that question, and those differentials were in the midrange of her previous performances. On the question of which candidate has more experience, voters gave Clinton her usual wide margin of more than 80 percentage points, but only 28 percent of voters in Ohio said that was the most important quality.

The larger point the Clinton aides will make to superdelegates and voters in the next big primary state of Pennsylvania is that the Texas and Ohio results reflect what happens when the two candidates are compared side by side. Obama can give speeches and draw crowds, but when it comes to matching him against a competitor, as the general election will demand, Obama can't stand up to the comparison. Will any of the Clinton arguments work? We'll see in the coming days if hundreds of superdelegates allow the primary process to continue without continuing to move toward Obama. Clinton is pleading for time, arguing that voters should be allowed to have their say in future contests. But even in this she comes up against a contradiction posted by Obama's lead. Because she must rely on the superdelegates to beat back Obama's likely lead in the popular vote and among pledged delegates, she is essentially asking those superdelegates to listen to the people—but only long enough to be persauded to vote for her. Then she expects them to undo the will of the people by voting against Obama in Denver. Clinton has rescued her campaign from free-fall, but the ride from here to the nomination is still going to be very bumpy.