Last week, with commendable honesty, Hillary Clinton's campaign announced that in a frantic push to save their candidate from defeat at the hands of Barack Obama, they were going to throw everything including the “kitchen sink” at him.

It was derided at the time as merely a sign of the desperation that 11 straight primary defeats and a host of premature political obituaries had wrought. But it turned out to be both an accurate forecast of the next phase of the campaign and a description of one of the most brilliant tactical manoeuvres since Nelson sailed straight for the Franco-Spanish line at Trafalgar.

In the last days before this week's critical Texas and Ohio primaries, Mrs Clinton hit Mr Obama not only with the sink, but with most of the plumbing, the countertops and a couple of heavy duty appliances for good measure.

First, in Ohio, she turned a minor spat over a questionable Obama campaign leaflet into a great stain on his personal honour: “Shame on you, Barack Obama!” she cried, “Shame on you!” Then she compared him to George Bush, saying the country had seen the “tragic consequences” of electing a president with no foreign policy experience.

Last weekend she threw in the tar brush too. In an interview with CBS, she was asked whether she thought Mr Obama (middle name Hussein) might actually be a secret Muslim. To which she replied: “No, no. There is nothing to base that on - as far as I know.”

Not subtle. It echoed some of the earlier remarks that Clinton officials have deployed about Mr Obama's acknowledgement of youthful drug abuse. It was a bit like saying: “I have no reason to believe he is a mass murderer and a rapist. He insists that he isn't and I take him at his word.”

Then last weekend her campaign ran one of its most effective television commercials yet, playing on Mr Obama's inexperience as commander-in-chief: the ad featured a phone ringing while children slept soundly in their beds. An ominous voice said it was 3am and a phone was ringing in the White House: “Who do you want answering the phone?” it asked. You half-expected the receiver to be picked up by a black hand holding a spliff and a string of Muslim prayer beads.

It all worked, of course. She won the big prizes of Texas and Ohio, and critically, according to exit polls, she won by a two to one margin among the large numbers of voters who said they made up their minds in the last few days of the campaign.

To be sure, she was helped by Mr Obama, perhaps reeling under the deluge of household plumbing, showing his first signs of wilting.

His carefully crafted economic message of populist irresponsible nonsense was cruelly betrayed by a campaign adviser who discreetly told the Canadian Government that the protectionist propaganda that Mr Obama was peddling on the campaign trail would be safely jettisoned once he got to the White House. On Monday his dubious financial links with a property developer came back to haunt him.

Then the media, having for most of the campaign struck a posture of infatuated awe with Mr Obama, finally got off their knees and started asking serious questions. The senator didn't much like this and called an aggrieved halt at a press conference this week after only eight questions.

And so, here we are, astonishingly, with more than three quarters of the Democratic primary elections over, back to square one.

Despite her victories on Tuesday, Mrs Clinton still trails in terms of delegates. But what was once a tiny crack of light in her darkening campaign has now opened into a window of opportunity.

If she wins the next big primary in Pennsylvania on April 22, she will accentuate her new-found momentum, with still another ten or so primaries to go. There is growing talk that the Democrats will have to schedule new primaries in Florida and Michigan, two very big states that have already voted, and which Mrs Clinton won, but whose delegates were disqualified because the states infringed the party's rules on timing.

If all this breaks for her she will have a significantly enhanced chance of persuading the party's super-delegates, who will decide the matter at the convention, that she would be the best candidate to take on John McCain in November.

The danger, I think, for Mr Obama is that the kitchen sink volley of the last week has revealed a central truth about the Democratic contest: she wants it more. In politics, it's not necessarily the better person who gets the top job, but the one who is really, really desperate for it and willing to go to any lengths to get it.

For Mrs Clinton - and for her momentarily quiet husband - this is it. This is the alpha and omega of their existence; the sacred mission at the heart of their life's journey. They will do anything to get there. Mr Obama has time on his side - at only 46 he will be a leader of the Democratic party for 20 years or more.

In another clever move after this week's primaries, Mrs Clinton showed she perhaps senses this disparity of political hunger when she mooted the idea of a “dream ticket” for the Democrats - she as the presidential candidate, Mr Obama as the vice-president.

It makes perfect sense for her and might, if he thinks really hard about it, suit him. If they win in November, he is the heir apparent when she ultimately steps down. If they lose, he is the immediate successor.

And after another week or two like the last, Mr Obama may finally decide it's better to have Mrs Clinton on his side than have her throwing the plumbing at him.

Times Recommends

• You created the job. You should do it
• A swindler with a ready maid plan
• Charming to pillory disabled Brown