GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES with excerpts

The fight continues... Clinton wins Texas, Ohio

"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," Clinton told a cheering crowd of supporters.

"This nation's coming back and so is this campaign!" Clinton said.    watch video

Hillary hints at shared ticket

The morning after reviving her candidacy with two big primary wins, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) hinted Wednesday that she and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) may wind up as ticket mates.

“That may, you know, be where this is headed, but of course we have to decide who’s on the top of ticket,” Clinton said with a laugh on the CBS's “The Early Show.” “I think that the people of Ohio very clearly said that it should be me."

Negative & negative-er

"Despite Obama's impressive victories in February, Clinton's comeback is based on sowing political seeds of doubt," said Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist and one of nearly 800 party leaders known as superdelegates for their ability to determine the nomination. "In order to clinch the nomination, he must anticipate the worst attacks ever."

... A senior Obama adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Obama's team will respond to Tuesday's results by going negative on Clinton — raising questions about her tax records and the source of donations to the Clinton presidential library, among skeletons in the Clintons' past.

Record-shattering turnout, chaos in Texas

Confusion, chaos and controversy ruled Central Texas' precinct caucuses Tuesday night.

Precincts struggled with a shortage of sign-up sheets. School gymnasiums, cafeterias and libraries overflowed with voters. Precinct leaders accustomed to turnouts in the dozens were faced with hundreds of people lining up to help choose a presidential candidate on a day when record numbers of Texans had packed polling places statewide.

Many voters were confused. Precinct officials were frazzled. The Austin Police Department was called to one precinct after a confrontation between voters.

"It's insanity," said Elizabeth Yevich, executive director of the Travis County Democratic Party.

Before the polls closed, accusations by the campaigns of Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton about efforts to subvert the caucus process prompted the Texas Democratic Party to issue two memos warning the campaigns to abide by the rules.

Pennsylvania - 'the new Iowa' - now looms on the horizon

The campaigns of both Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton wake up this morning to a seven-week stretch that includes just three contests, and climaxes on April 22 in Harrisburg.

"Pennsylvania is the new Iowa," said Clinton spokesman Doug Hattaway.
 

THE CANDIDATES:

Mike Huckabee... today's headlines with excerpts

Huckabee exits race, backs McCain

"I extended to him not only my congratulations but my commitment to him and to the party to do everything possible to unite out party and to unite our country," said Huckabee.

As he had for much of the race, Huckabee had only kind words for McCain and the "civil" campaign he ran. "I am grateful for the manner in which he has conducted his campaign," Huckabee said.     watch video

Huckabee's next stage: television?

How does “The Mike Huckabee Show” sound?

As Mr. Huckabee’s campaign plotted a concession speech on Tuesday, some analysts suggested that viewers would see the longshot Republican presidential candidate on television again very soon.

On the MSNBC program “Morning Joe,” the Republican strategist Mike Murphy predicted Mr. Huckabee would “suspend his campaign, hire excellent agents, and begin negotiations for a cable TV talk show, all within the next 10 days.”

“We’ve got a chair here he could fill,” the co-host Mika Brzezinski remarked

John McCain... today's headlines with excerpts

McCain cinches nomination

John McCain capped one of the most remarkable political comebacks in American history by seizing the Republican nomination. With decisive victories in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, McCain surged past the needed 1,191 delegates to win the GOP nod.

... "I am very, very grateful and pleased to note that tonight, my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a great sense of responsibility that I will be the Republican nominee,” McCain said      watch video

President Bush to endorse McCain

Bush and McCain -- rivals in an often bitter 2000 presidential campaign -- will have lunch together and then make a joint statement at 1pm ET, according to a senior administration official.
 

Hillary Clinton... today's headlines with excerpts

Exit polls: why Clinton won Texas

Clinton split white men and won six in ten white women. Barack Obama’s strength among blacks was neutralized by Clinton’s continued strength among Hispanics, according to the exit polls conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for television networks and the Associated Press.
... Clinton won six in ten Hispanics, as she had a month ago. Obama won nine in ten blacks, as he had in early February. In Texas, Hispanics constituted a larger portion of voters than blacks, by 10 percentage points.

Exit polls: why Clinton won Ohio

Hillary Rodham Clinton erased Barack Obama’s recent inroads with whites Tuesday night in Ohio. And she did it more with men than women, more with the working class than any other, and more strongly on an economic appeal.

Clinton’s resurgence, in contrast to her early comeback in New Hampshire, was propelled by more than white female support. Clinton did win the majority of Ohio’s white women, the defining attribute of nearly all of her victories. But the percentage shift of her white male support outpaced the shift of white female support.

Obama camp infiltrates Clinton call

In one of the most bizarre moments of the 2008 campaign, Obama campaign lawyer Bob Bauer called into a Tuesday night Clinton campaign conference call with reporters. The four and a half minute exchange led to a series of antagonistic questions painting the former first lady's charges of caucus vote tampering as baseless....

see also: Allegations of caucus shenanigans fly

Energizing victories, difficult delegate math...

... as she vowed to keep campaigning, the tight vote in Texas signaled she may yet face a tough decision in coming weeks. The slim margin in the Texas popular vote and an additional caucus process in which she trailed made clear that she would not win enough delegates to put a major dent in Sen. Barack Obama's lead. And regardless of the results, she emerged from the crucible of Ohio and Texas with a campaign mired in debt and riven by dissension