Clinton triumphs in Florida, sort of

She won big in the Florida primary, but whether Hillary Rodham Clinton won anything that counts in the fierce competition for the Democratic presidential nomination is much less certain.

No delegates were at stake here Tuesday, meaning Clinton’s double-digit victory over Barack Obama gets her no closer to the magic number of 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.

Still, she did all she could to play up the outcome. Clinton jetted down to Florida from Washington for a celebration, savoring the win and casting it as genuine. Delegates or not, it was a better day than Saturday, when she lost the South Carolina primary to Obama by 28 percentage points.

Her campaign argued that Tuesday’s result blunted any momentum Obama had gotten in the last week from the South Carolina win and the endorsement Monday of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and other members of the Kennedy family.

Speaking to a boisterous crowd, many of whom held up union signs, Clinton said: “I am so grateful to the countless Floridians who, on their own, organized, worked hard, talked to your friends and your neighbors. You made a very big difference.”

As elections go, the Democratic primary proved a muddle.

The national party stripped Florida of its delegates as punishment for leapfrogging other states in the election calendar, in defiance of party wishes. Neither Obama nor Clinton overtly campaigned in the state, abiding by a pledge signed to preserve the status of states that traditionally hold early contests.

So the import of Clinton’s victory comes down to interpretation.

Her camp made the case that the results could be a foreshadowing of Super Tuesday, when more than 20 states will hold election contests.

In the view of the Obama campaign, the Florida outcome was essentially meaningless -- a “beauty contest” that carries no more weight than a statewide poll. In a succinct statement Tuesday night, the Illinois senator’s camp said: “Obama and Clinton tie for delegates in Florida: 0 for Obama; 0 for Clinton.”

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in an interview that Clinton was “basically trying to take a victory lap when there was no race.”

And Clinton did not linger in Florida. She gave a seven-minute speech, shook supporters’ hands, then flew to Arkansas -- her former home state, which votes in the Feb. 5 contests. She was to campaign today in Little Rock, Ark., and Atlanta.

“Stay with us,” the New York senator told the crowd gathered in a ballroom here, “because starting tomorrow we’re going to sweep through the states across our country to Feb. 5 -- and we will, together, not only take back the White House but take back our country!”

As the day unfolded, the Clinton and Obama campaigns implored the media to accept their answer to the day’s question: What do the Florida results mean?

Clinton strategists offered an intricate argument. No candidate can afford to invest substantial time and money in all the states that vote on Super Tuesday. In that sense, Florida -- where there was little real campaigning or advertising -- was akin to those states, spokesman Howard Wolfson said. So a solid Clinton victory in Florida bodes well for her.

In a conference call, Obama supporters accused Clinton of trying to have it both ways. She curried favor with Iowa and other states holding early contests by boycotting Florida, they said, only to claim later that Florida’s result counted after all.

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who has endorsed Obama, said: “I know what this race is about, and what it is ultimately about is delegates. Delegates are what Sen. Clinton and her campaign have described it as being about. . . . The bottom line is that Florida doesn’t offer any delegates.”

peter.nicholas@latimes.com