It was a great night for a candidate who has returned three times from the political dead, writes Denis Staunton
AS HILLARY Clinton stepped up to the podium at a Masonic hall in Columbus on Tuesday night, the confetti guns above her head went into turbocharged action, leaving the candidate and her daughter Chelsea picking large squares of coloured paper out of each other's hair. Clinton seemed to be thrilled by the confetti blizzard as she gave her trademark wave and point to people in the audience she had never set eyes on before and possibly couldn't see now through the glare of TV lights.
"For everyone here in Ohio and across America who's ever 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," she said, and the place went wild.
It had been a long night in Columbus and it wasn't clear until 11 pm that Clinton would win Ohio and almost two hours before Texas fell her way. The evening had started with a win for Barack Obama in Vermont that brought to 12 his unbroken run of victories since Super Tuesday.
As soon as the polls closed in Ohio, however, the early returns looked good for Clinton, with exit polls showing her ahead among voters without a college education, union households and non-union households.
"Geez, is there anyone we're not winning?" campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe asked, before urging everyone not to get excited too soon.
The grin across Ohio governor Ted Strickland's face was an unmistakable sign, however, that he felt sure he had delivered this bellwether state for Clinton.
Like many of Clinton's rallies, the Columbus election night party drew a big crowd of middle-aged women, many of whom came dressed as the candidate in neat pant suits and simple jewellery with their hair rigidly under control. Clinton's gay fans were well represented too, with one young man wearing a T-shirt with the candidate's rather butch slogan "Meet me in Ohio".
Clinton events don't attract many African-Americans these days and those who came to the event on Tuesday were immediately spotted by campaign staff, who yanked them up to the front where the cameras could see them.
A jazz band was playing standards as the results crawled in, with Texas looking like a big Obama win for much of the night and nerves were apparently getting frayed in the VIP section.
"The suspense is too much and I just couldn't stand it up there," one Washington hostess told me, perhaps to explain why she was reduced to talking to me at all.
When Rhode Island came through for Clinton, it was clear that her base of women, Catholics and the white working class were returning after their February flirtation with Obama. In the end, Clinton won Ohio by 10 points and her victory in Texas crowned a great night for a candidate who has now returned from the political dead three times in two months.
"You know what they say, as Ohio goes, so goes the nation," she told her supporters.
"Well, this nation's coming back and so is this campaign. The people of Ohio have said it loudly and clearly: we're going on, we're going strong, and we're going all the way."