Though her delegate gain will be muted (and likely not fully tallied till well into today), yesterday Clinton got the bragging rights she wanted … and earned. Not only did her ‘experience’ argument win, vindicating Mark Penn’s focus grouped message, but her coup de grace - the 3 am phone call ad - worked the magic, as most or all of her victory margin in Texas came from the undecideds who joined her side in the final 3 days.

She can continue the claim that she wins the big states (she’s won everything with more than 15 electoral votes, except Obama’s home state of Illinois), which incudes, in order, CA, TX, NY, FL, IL, PA, OH, MI.

Pennyslvania will be the final chance for Obama to break that string, and demographically, the odds are against him doing so.

As Clinton tries to forestall the superdelegate drain, another argument she’ll likely use: were this a general election campaign, Texas just gave her the electoral vote victory. (And of course, the immediate counter is: but FL and MI don’t count.)

I still maintain the surreptitious move in the final week to target Obama’s core demographic - younger voters - played a key role in Little Tuesday’s outcome. While Obama now must deal with the news rolling out of the Rezko trial, he’ll have time to reflect on certain gaffes that were made, like the Goolsbee visit to Canada (and more importantly, his mishandling of that) and his lack of an adequate answer that he can handle the national security issues.

Ultimately, Texas tipped Clinton’s way because the Latino community mirrored those in CA, AZ and NV instead of NM, in going big for her. And while there’ll be lots of spin and momentum talk filling the air from the Clinton side, the results simply mirrored the pattern of demographic predictives that I first laid out on February 10th: Clinton won everything that the demographic odds favored her winning more than three weeks ago.

So, according to those predictives, the upsets remain: for Obama, WI, CO, CT, ME, MN, plus the narrow loss in NM, and actually, VT. And for Clinton, her victory margins - not the actual victories - in CA, AZ and OH. (The margins in FL and MI will always be debatable and can never be settled). Demographically, she has yet to pull a single real upset.

The path ahead can now be broken into thirds of roughly equal delegate counts:

- 7 weeks, through April 22nd: WY, MS and PA offer 203 pledged delegates, with PA providing 158 of them.

- the next 2 weeks, through May 6th: Guam, IN and NC offer 191 pledged delegates, with IN and NC providing all but 4 of them.

With Clinton’s wins yesterday, the primary season will definitely continue to this May 6th juncture. The demographic predictives say Obama will win MS and NC (combined, 148 pledged delegates) and Clinton will win PA (158 pledged delegates). WY (12) leans to Obama and IN (72) should be fully in play by both.

Without an upset in this group, the only delegate gain Clinton really has available is in IN, as the others should offset. Clinton will be forced to seek a broad winning margin in PA and IN and will try to narrow Obama’s margins or gain an upset anywhere else. Even the most positive Clinton scenarios will likely yield an Obama lead after May 6th of at least 60 pledged delegates. Should she falter, or simply perform according to the predictives, they’ll end May 6th with only a minor delegate narrowing over the gap that exists now.

So count on a minimum of 9 weeks before the next day of reckoning. And reckon with this: after that date, there IS a route for Clinton to overcome the pledged delegate odds with a minimal use of offsets like FL, MI and/or superdelegate arguments.

For the final third offers, in 4-1/2 weeks, WV, KY, OR, MT, SD and Puerto Rico, with 217 pledged delegates. And none lean to Obama by my demographic predictives. Despite the word I hear that some claim OR is Obama territory, nothing in the demographics supports that claim. In fact, OR (52), KY (51), Puerto Rico (55) and WV (28) all lean to Clinton and MT (16) is a push.

In all likelihood, were all the remaining primaries held today, Obama would still have a lead, but it would be by less than 50 pledged delegates. With the possibility that Clinton could sweep most of that final third, she’d also be able to claim the momentum argument. And with the unsettled FL and MI delegates outstanding, she could claim a near tie, which could prove persuasive to the superdelegates.

With yesterday’s results, this is exactly the place that Obama sought to avoid. I’m sure the DNC and most superdelegates also don’t relish the thought of deciding the race if it proves to be that close.

The only good news for Obama is that the strongest demographic predictives all belong to him: the black vote in MS and NC. The Latino vote in Puerto Rico can’t be determined as identical to the Latino vote elsewhere for Clinton. It’s a different group. And nobody can guess whether Bill Clinton’s controversial pardon of FALN members is viewed as a positive by Puerto Ricans, especially in the post 9-11 era. Even if Puerto Rico’s demographics ultimately favor Clinton, its 55 delegates don’t come close to the 148 delegates of NC and MS.

The bottom line is that, while Clinton has a demographic predictive edge in more remaining states, none are automatically as exclusive as NC and MS are likely to be. Obama could emerge on Jun 7th as the clear leader still, just by keeping the Clinton win margins small. Based on past performance, he certainly could win any of them, which would bolster his claim to the crown.

The difference is, Clinton will no longer take a single primary for granted and will be fighting every step of the way. There’ll be no chance for Obama to coast. Clinton got her wake-up call in Wisconsin. Last night, in Texas, Obama got his.

Though the delegate math still slightly favors Obama, the challenge to both candidates is identical the rest of the way: if you’re the better fighter and the greater leader, you’re going to have to step up and prove it. (And Obama? Should you win WY and MS, that only proves you can ride the demographics. Your next real test is in PA where you need to keep it closer than you did last night in Ohio.)