"Victorious Obama : 'We Have Lift Off'" (with video)

WaPo, with video (02:23):

HOUSTON -- The Obama campaign already knew the exit poll numbers looked good, but Barack Obama stayed out of sight well past 8:30 local time, as a restless crowd of 19,000 in Houston's Toyota Center tried the Wave, then alternating chants and screams to keep itself excited. The crowd packed the rafters, filling the nose-bleed seats that the Houston Rockets can only fill on the occasional good night.

And it looked like another good night for Obama. Despite being bloodied by charges of plagiarism and vapidity, the Illinois senator had taken his ninth win in a row as he completed the first of a four-day swing through Texas.

Without a major warm-up act, the cash-rich Obama campaign turned to the popular YouTube video made for free by Black Eyed Peas star will.i.am to bring on the candidate. Then the crowd erupted into a deafening scream when the Wisconsin results were announced and Obama bounded on stage.

"Houston," he said, "we have lift off."

Campaign adviser David Axelrod took particular glee in the results after the rough days that proceeded it. Obama's win among late-deciders, he said, was a clear repudiation of the negative campaigning. A Gallup tracking poll showed the national race between Obama and Clinton tightening substantially, but Axelrod would have nothing of it.

"All I can read is what we saw from the voters in Wisconsin," he said. "They rendered a verdict."

Howie P.S.: Ari Melber renders his own verdict in The Nation:"OBAMA WINS WISCONSIN, REBUFFING CLINTON ATTACKS." Melber's verdict was based on the evidence presented by the voters in the frigid Badger state:

The results showed Obama consolidating a remarkably broad coalition of voters. He won every age group under 65, every income level and both union and non-union households. Obama won among whites and blacks, married and unmarried voters and among both college-educated voters and people without degrees. Repeat primary voters backed Obama by seven points, while he dominated among first-time primary voters by 30 points.

Barack Obama