Net Results

Call Florida's delegate-less Democratic primary a "beauty contest" or "straw poll" if you will, but that didn't stop easy winner Hillary Clinton from staging a full-blown victory party in the state tonight.

The primary night tableau was in sharp contrast to the one just three days earlier in South Carolina, where Barack Obama, Clinton's leading rival for the Democratic nomination, won a one-sided victory and roused a roomful of ecstatic supporters with the rousing oratory that is his political trademark.

This time it was Clinton who gave a pep talk to her supporters, describing the win as a preview of big victories she predicted for herself in the slew of primaries on next week's "Super Tuesday."

Clinton referred to the fact that she had joined the rest of the Democratic candidates in a voluntary embargo on campaigning in the state that had been requested by the Democratic National Committee, which had stripped the state party of its national convention delegates for breaking the party's scheduling rules for nominating contests. "I could not come here to ask in person for your votes, but I am here to thank you for your votes today," Clinton said.

She also repeated her intention to fight for the seating of the delegates from Florida and Michigan (where she won an earlier primary tainted by the same kind of scheduling dispute between the national and state parties). Clinton's move on this matter, announced just days before the Florida primary, outraged her opponents, who accused her of staging an end run.

And although the upfront role played in her campaign by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has caused controversy, she echoed the theme of his initial 1992 White House campaign in her Florida speech. "I believe it's time again we have a president who puts the American people first."