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Hillary Clinton scored a big victory over front-runner Barack
Obama in West Virginia, but it could be too little and too late to
stop his march to the Democratic presidential nomination.
Clinton hoped the easy win in a state dominated by the white
working-class voters who have been her biggest supporters will turn
around her campaign and boost her argument she is the Democrat with
the best chance to beat Republican John McCain in November's
election.
But Obama, who would be the first black US president, retains a
nearly insurmountable advantage in delegates who will select the
nominee at the party convention in August. West Virginia had 28
delegates at stake.
Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady, has vowed to
keep fighting despite dwindling prospects and a mounting campaign
debt.
"I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe that I could be the
best president for West Virginia and America and that I was the
stronger candidate to take on John McCain in the fall," she said at
a rally in Logan, West Virginia, on Monday.
Obama already was looking to November on Tuesday, visiting the
general election battleground of Missouri, with stops planned in
Michigan on Wednesday and in Florida next week.
He did not make a public appearance after the West Virginia voting
ended, but a campaign spokesman said he left Clinton a
congratulatory message on her cell phone.
Obama's campaign released a memo highlighting his strength in the
race.
A delegate count by MSNBC gives Obama 1,874 delegates to
Clinton's 1,702 before Tuesday's results, leaving him 151 short of
the 2,025 needed to clinch the nomination.
Neither candidate can win without help from superdelegates - nearly
800 party officials who are free to back any candidate.
Obama has been gaining ground among superdelegates for weeks and
picked up four more on Tuesday.
He now has a narrow lead over Clinton among superdelegates with
less than 250 still uncommitted.
"Barack Obama leads in pledged delegates, contests won and
superdelegates. And for perspective, while 28 pledged delegates are
up for grabs this evening, Obama has won the support of 27
superdelegates in the course of just the last week," the Obama
campaign memo said.
A newly announced Obama supporter, former Colorado Governor Roy
Romer, said it was impossible for Clinton to catch Obama.
"The math is controlling. This race, I believe, is over," he
said on a conference call sponsored by the Obama campaign.
Exit polls showed Obama picked up more than one-quarter of the
white vote in West Virginia, which has a very small black
population.
Two of every 10 white voters said race was a factor in their
vote, and only a third of those said they would support Obama
against McCain.
About half of West Virginia voters said they believed the Illinois
senator shared the views of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his
controversial former pastor.
After West Virginia, five more contests remain in the Democratic
nominating battle with a combined 189 delegates at stake.
Oregon and Kentucky vote on May 20, while Puerto Rico votes on
June 1 and Montana and South Dakota vote on June 3.
Earlier on Tuesday, both candidates returned to their jobs in the
US Senate, where they exchanged a few words while voting for a
measure aimed at lowering oil prices.
Record-high gas prices have been a key issue in the campaign.
