Big Wins for Clinton in Texas and Ohio; McCain Is In as G.O.P. Choice  —  Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton defeated Senator Barack Obama in the Ohio and Texas primaries on Tuesday, ending a string of defeats and allowing her to soldier on in a Democratic presidential nomination race that now seems unlikely to end any time soon.

Obama lawyer ambushes Clinton conference call  —  Barack Obama's top lawyer, Bob Bauer, made an unexpected appearance on the Clinton campaign's conference call this evening, calling in on a line intended for reporters to challenge Clinton aides' claims of irregularities in several Texas precincts.

Exit polls: Did Limbaugh influence Democratic race?  —  (CNN) — There were concerns that Republican voters would participate in large numbers in the Democratic primaries in Ohio and Texas Tuesday and cause mischief, following a call by Rush Limbaugh for listeners to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Q&A: Barack Obama and Tony Rezko  —  Who is Tony Rezko?  —  Antoin “Tony” Rezko, 52, a long-time friend and fundraiser for Barack Obama, is a Syrian-born property developer, pizzeria entrepreneur and political fixer in Chicago.  Hillary Clinton has made him a campaign issue by denouncing him as a “slum landlord”.

FINAL THOUGHTS  —  The big headlines tonight are now in focus.  Hillary takes three of four primaries, and the two big states.  Yet the delegate spread didn't budge.  The possibilities seem to range from a high-single digit pick up for Hillary to the possibility of a net pick up for Obama.

Sentiment on Iraq Is Changing  —  WASHINGTON — The perception that the U.S. troop surge in Iraq has succeeded is changing some public views of the war, potentially blunting Democrats' political edge on the issue.  —  Americans continue to judge the nearly five-year-old U.S. invasion of Iraq as a mistake …

Back in the Game  —  The morning after the Democratic primary debate on Feb. 21, while both sides argued over who had come out ahead, there was one clear winner: CNN.  The debate, broadcast by CNN and Univision, the Spanish-language network, drew 7.6 million viewers, one of the biggest audiences ever …

The Mini Tuesday Primary Thread: Paul Triumphs, Clinton Endures, Mike Huckabee Splatters Against the Wall  —  UPDATE 8:36: Ron Paul has been re-elected to Congress in the Fourteenth District of Texas.  —  No Democrat has filed to run against him, so winning the GOP nomination has assured him re-election.

The Dungeonmaster Has Died  —  Gary Gygax, 1938-2008  —  (hat tip: Jonah Goldberg and John J. Miller at NRO and Will Greenwald at Crave)  —  One of the seminal influences in fantasy in the twentieth century has left us for Valhalla.  Gygax was a giant, a man whose enthusiasm and sense …

The Crucial Racist Vote  —  According to MSNBC exit polls, it seems to have put Hillary Clinton over the top.  —  Relatedly, I don't understand why they're not calling Ohio for Clinton.  The exit polls look unambiguous to me — she's won it.  Obama made up a lot of ground over the past two weeks …

Dems shift gears on Iraq  —  Congressional Democrats searching for a message that will resonate on the Iraq war are preparing an argument that getting troops out of the conflict is the only way to rebuild a spent military.  —  It's a less ambitious argument than the “Out-of-Iraq now” …

TEXAS TURNOUT TIDBIT  —  From NBC's Mark Murray  —  An Obama source emails First Read that the campaign is expecting turnout between 3.6 to 3.8 million in the Texas Democratic primary.  —  Consider that John Kerry received 2.8 million votes in the Lone Star State in the 2004 general election.