Tough enough

How tough is Hillary Clinton?

She's tough enough to fight back against an opponent who has everything she lacks - especially eloquence and cool.

She's tough enough to withstand a media that mostly despise her and openly root for her to drop out.

In Pennsylvania, she was tough enough to win by 10 points, even though Barack Obama outspent her 3-to-1, drew huge adoring crowds and carried the young, the college-educated and a flood of newly registered voters.

She was also tough enough to withstand the political damage she inflicted on herself via the fabricated story of landing under sniper fire in Bosnia. That campaign misstep should have been fatal, because it exposed Clinton's biggest weakness -- being part of a husband and wife team with a track record for trimming the truth and outright lying.

She survived it because Obama, like all candidates, has weaknesses, too, and she was tough enough to exploit them.That is the risk of the endless and wearying campaign that Clinton is committed to waging, and Obama is forced to endure. She pinned him under the microscope, long enough for voters to see more of the man behind the wrapping. It allowed her to keep women, blue collar and older voters - an important chunk of the Democratic constituency - with her in Pennsylvania.

Obama still leads in the delegate count and still has the media love. He's still the favorite to win the nomination.

But by now, he knows better than anyone else just how tough Clinton is. And he might be worrying just a bit that despite all her obvious flaws, his opponent is showing the kind of toughness Americans want from their next president.

Joan Vennochi can be reached at vennochi@globe.com.