Hillary Clinton, pronounced virtually dead as a presidential candidate just a week ago, won a major victory in the Ohio primary, squeaked through Texas and now has "momentum. " She 's going all the way to Denver. That 's what she says.

It is a roller coaster, isn 't it?

Six months ago, Hillary was the "inevitable " Democratic candidate (and John McCain was dead as a Republican candidate). Then, she got creamed in Iowa and commentators started referring to her in the past tense. A week later, she won New Hampshire. She was back! Until South Carolina, where she was creamed again, as she was in Virginia, Wisconsin and a number of other states. She returned to the dead.

Just a week ago today, the talking heads who dominate cable television news were saying she should drop out before she was embarrassed in Ohio. Her momentum stalled slightly again Saturday in Wyoming, but maybe that 's just another bump in the road.

It 's all pretty exhausting and it 's all very Clinton.

You do remember Bill, don 't you?

When he was running for president, women kept coming out of the woodwork, draft boards released pleading letters written during the Vietnam War and Arkansas cronies emerged from under rocks. He was dead. Then he was alive. Then he was dead again.

We know how that turned out. Clinton won the presidential election against George H.W. Bush, a president who, a year earlier, had something like a 90 percent approval rating. Bill was alive!

Then he put Hillary in charge of health-care reform and that debacle turned Democrats out of power in the House and Senate. There 's one thing we knew about Bill Clinton in 1994: He was a one-term president.

Except, obviously, he wasn 't. He won again in 1996, embraced welfare reform, found a way to balance the budget. He was alive!

Tell that to Monica Lewinsky. And to Paula Jones. And to Kenneth Starr. Suffice it to say, the Clinton Circus didn 't lose steam during his second term.

Hillary, we thought, was the anti-Clinton. The steadfast member of the family, the drudge who actually attended Senate committee hearings and who flew around the world drinking vodka shots with John McCain. We in the press became so convinced of that stereotype that we barely noticed the fact that, during this whole campaign, Hillary is the person who sucks all the oxygen out of any room she 's in. She 's a Clinton.

Obama has the reputation in the press for being the inspiring candidate, the one who packs huge auditoriums with swooning young people. He 's the cool guy. He just keeps accumulating delegates and, slowly but surely, ending Hillary 's quest for the presidency.

Unless, of course, that 's not the way it turns out.