Good Wednesday morning. Despite our best efforts at a vacation, certain recent events demand attention. Here's what a tired Washington is waking up to today:

-- The Senate is back in action on a bill regarding the Consumer Product Safety Commission, while the House votes on a bill on Iraq reconstruction and celebrates the debut, 58 years ago, of Earl Lloyd, the first black player in the NBA. President Bush meets with King Abdullah of Jordan and a certain Senator from Arizona, for an endorsement.

-- The bottom line today: Hillary Clinton, again, had her back against the wall. And Hillary Clinton, again, pulled out a huge night. She won crucial primaries in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island, bettering most analysts' expectations, and may have even closed the delegate gap with Barack Obama. The Democratic presidential nomination, which many hoped would be over tonight, will continue through Pennsylvania's April 22 contests and probably further.

-- On the Republican side, John McCain will indeed appear next to President Bush tomorrow at the White House, where he will accept Bush's endorsement after clinching more than the 1,191 delegates needed to win the Republican presidential nomination. Mike Huckabee, waging a campaign that some believe harmed his chances at a political future, dropped out last night, calling his one-time rival an honorable man.

-- But Clinton is the story this morning. And it's very likely, despite hand-wringing by some politicos and media watchers, that her ad focusing on her national security credentials as opposed to Obama was over the top, the ad was what did the trick. Along with usual big margins among women, less educated whites and lower-income voters, Clinton, for the first time since New Hampshire, won voters who had decided in the last three days. In Ohio, she won 58% of those voters, higher than the 53% she won among those who decided before that. She won 61% of those voters in Texas, too, ringing up an 23-point margin over Obama as the two split voters who had decided beforehand and providing the decisive margin.

-- The biggest thing that happened in the last three days: Clinton's airing the advertisement suggesting she is better qualified to answer a phone call at 3 a.m. suggesting a crisis. Obama's team landed good counter-punches, challenging Clinton to detail her own experience and suggesting that in her one chance to do just that, a vote in favor of the war in Iraq, she had failed. But coupled with a dispute over Obama's statements on NAFTA, Clinton's game-changing gambit looks like the straw that broke the camel's back.

-- While most analysts predicted that, even with narrow wins, Clinton would not be able to close the delegate lead -- his big win in Vermont, her smaller wins in other states were contributing factors to those calculations -- she may have done so, albeit by a tiny margin.
"In our latest projections ... any pledged delegate shift will be absolutely minimal," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement late last night. We probably won't know the final delegate counts for a few days yet. Still, the Clinton camp will be crowing for days over the victory, which by virtually every measure was bigger than expected. How many super delegates, set to endorse Obama tomorrow, are now avoiding phone calls from the Illinoisian's campaign?

-- Clinton's performance just means the 300 or so super delegates who have yet to decide on a candidate will find themselves under even more pressure. In fact, though Clinton has seen a number of desertions in recent weeks, her super delegate cat-herder, Harold Ickes, will be able to approach The Uncommitted with a renewed sense of purpose: The Clintons are not done, he will be able to say. Underestimate them at your own peril.

-- Surrogates Of The Day: Clinton's most important win came in Ohio, where she pulled it out by a bigger margin -- double digits -- than anyone expected. The biggest winners: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who has had the unenviable task of being Clinton's lead mouthpiece on cable news nets in recent weeks. And Governor Ted Strickland, who announced his backing of Clinton long enough ago to have had a serious impact on the campaign. If Clinton wins the nomination and has to look for a running mate who can actually deliver a state, Strickland's name just crept a few places higher on that short list.

-- Today On The Trail: Clinton wakes up early to appear on all three networks' morning shows, along with "Fox and Friends" and "Morning Joe." The real importance of Clinton's wins in all three states: The campaign said nothing of today's schedule until 12:38 a.m., meaning last night's outcome really did matter. A lot. McCain has two stops planned, the first at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where he and wife Cindy meet Bush to accept his endorsement. Later, he will attend a fundraiser with Governor Charlie Crist in Gulf Stream, Florida, an event -- his first fundraiser as the presumptive nominee -- that is sure to set tongues wagging over the potential veep pick.