The clamor for Hillary Clinton to drop out of the presidential race has reached new levels of intensity since the Pennsylvania primary . Of all the things Hillary has done, Obama supporters find her tendency to win large elections in swing states as by far the most irritating. If she beats him in Indiana, they’ll be surrounding her house with torches.

“Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is back!” cried Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter to the cheering crowd at the victory bash on Tuesday.

While half the nation’s Democrats groaned in their living rooms, the other half happily watched as their girl refused to go down for the count. “Yes we can!” shouted the crowd.

Memo to crowd: Even though Obama has taken to promising “straight talk” lately, stealing another campaign’s slogan is still tacky.

Memo to Clinton campaign: While everybody understands that money is tight, charging supporters and faithful volunteers $5 for a plastic cup of soda at a victory party seemed like an overreaction. There must be a middle ground, perhaps involving the occasional bowl of complementary potato chips.

“This is one tough woman!” an ebullient Representative Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania told the crowd. He was so excited he referred to the primary as “the key to the beginning of the end for our next president,” which was probably not the exact message he meant to convey.

The one thing all Democrats can probably agree on is that Hillary is indeed one tough woman. When the three presidential candidates taped greetings to be played during a televised “Monday Night Raw” wrestling match, she was the one you’d least want to get into the ring with. (And by the way, was that really a good plan? I know these days a politician has to get on the air any way possible, but isn’t wrestling fixed or something?)

Finally, at the victory party, Hillary herself emerged, to the tune of Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” Let’s all try to rally around this song because the alternative is watching her go through nine more primaries to the theme from “Rocky.”

Then out came Chelsea and a pink and glistening Bill Clinton, fresh from that peculiar radio interview in which he referred to a mysterious memo that he said proved the Obama campaign played the “race card” in South Carolina. When asked about it later, he accused the reporter of not caring about the issues.

The Clintons embraced for a long time, during which Hillary patted her husband’s back. It was hard to tell if that was a gesture of affection or an attempt to quiet him down.

“The American people don’t quit, and they deserve a president who doesn’t quit either,” the once-and-future candidate told her supporters.

Ever since Barack Obama’s campaign took fire with his call for a politics that was bipartisan and sensible and uplifting, Hillary has been telling her party that this was a pipe dream, that politics was frequently mean and irrational and that it got more so the higher you went.

In Pennsylvania, this worked really well for her. When Hillary was cheesy (see: gun lessons from Dad at Lake Winola) or negative, that was just her showing what you need to do to win. But when Barack attacked her for attacking, he was reverting to old politics. And if old politics are all we’re going to get, why not hire Hillary? Forget about another Morning in America. Clinton’s on the move, and it’s a dark and stormy night.

Although Obama has seemed way off his game lately, the odds are still really, really good that he’ll get the nomination. The superdelegates are just waiting for him to win something so they can rally. And once the fighting is over, there’s no question that Hillary would rally her supporters behind him. (This is a woman who sat down for a chat with arch-conservative-right-wing-conspirator Richard Mellon Scaife just to wrest an endorsement from his little fringe newspaper in Pittsburgh.) And within a couple of weeks, Bill Clinton would be treating Barack like a surrogate son and forcing him to play golf.

And if it should go the other way, can Barack Obama do the same for her? Yes he can.

If you want to worry about something, worry about the way both of them have been pandering themselves over the edge. There was the dreaded read-my-lips, no-new-middle-class-taxes pledge during the Pennsylvania debate. Then Hillary tried to demonstrate her toughness by announcing she would “obliterate” Iran if it messed with Israel. And when it comes to political piñatas, we’ll always have Nafta. They both went into the tank on agricultural issues back in Iowa, so heaven knows what they’re saving for Indiana. Mandatory use of corn in highway paving materials?