LAST NIGHT the Republicans got a virtual nominee, who made clear he will wage his general election campaign on standing firm in Iraq, supporting free trade, and opposing government mandates in healthcare.
What the Democrats got was a contest that will continue on.
At deadline, the probable results looked like a good night for Hillary Clinton. She carried Ohio and Rhode Island. Barack Obama won Vermont.
Texas was too close to call.
If that holds, the race goes forward with each candidate emerging with something to point at.
Battling back from the edge of the abyss, Clinton lives to fight another day.
This wasn't the definitive showing she needed to bounce her back into the thick of the delegate hunt.
Still, last night's results will alter the campaign narrative.
Clinton can now argue that, after 11 straight victories for Barack Obama, she managed to stop his momentum, and that a new phase of the campaign has begun.
And for the first time, the Obama camp seemed stumble-prone. Reports that Austan Goolsbee, Obama's senior economic adviser, told Canadian officials that Obama's anti-NAFTA rhetoric was more about political positioning than a real policy change seemed to hurt. Certainly it gave Clinton a closing-days issue to exploit.
Further, her Ohio showing worked to buttress one of her important geopolitical arguments.
The Clinton camp has long contended that Democrats need to nominate a candidate who can win in the big states. Some of the large states she has carried - California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, to name four - will obviously be in the Democratic column in November. Ohio, however, is the very definition of a pivotal swing state. Victory there in 2000 would have made Al Gore the president. Kerry's failure there cost him the presidency in 2004.
So Ohio appeal is important.
And last night, Clinton demonstrated that she had it.
But Obama seemed likely to come out of the night with things to point at as well.
Given his lopsided victory in Vermont and his expected showing in the caucus component of the Texas process, he will continue to hold a sizable lead in pledged delegates.
Still, the larger point from last night is this: The democratic nominating contest simply isn't over yet.
There are 12 places left to hold contests, among them Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana, Mississippi, Oregon, and Kentucky, with 611 pledged delegates at stake. The issue of Michigan and Florida also remains unresolved, with the possibility of do-overs in those big states.
As Clinton's team has repeatedly pointed out, neither candidate can win the nomination without superdelegates. Her hope is to get close enough in pledged delegates that she can make a plausible argument to the superdelegates that she would be the best nominee.
Short of a big Obama gaffe - or a scandal of some sort - it's difficult to imagine the super delegates going against the pledged delegate tallies unless that contest is seen as a virtual tie. And last night's results don't seem to increase the chances of such a tie.
Nevertheless, the superdelegates have a legitimate role in the nominating process; that being so, Clinton's determination to go forward in the hope that victories in upcoming contests will persuade those delegates to back her is hardly out of bounds.
No doubt many Democrats will look enviously at the Republican side, where last night's results wrapped things up - and where Mike Huckabee's gracious, unifying concession speech will help John McCain to assume the mantle of GOP nominee-to-be.
Democrats will probably wish their own nomination were decided and worry that the continuing campaign will put their party at a disadvantage.
They should take a deep breath.
For all the fretting about divisiveness and for all the talk of attacks, the tougher fight we've seen in recent weeks has made both Obama and Clinton better candidates.
An indifferent debater when this started, Obama has developed into a convincing verbal combatant, and a particularly adroit counterpuncher. An awkward and presumptuous frontrunner, Clinton has become a feisty, and more likable, underdog.
Nor has this campaign deteriorated into truly worrisome territory. It's actually been rather tame. Instead, it's generated huge excitement among Democrats.
Let the contests continue.
Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com.
