CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Hillary Rodham Clinton coasted to a
large but largely symbolic victory in working-class West Virginia
on Tuesday, handing Barack Obama one of the worst defeats of the
campaign yet scarcely slowing his march toward the Democratic
presidential nomination.
"The White House is won in the swing states. And I am winning
the swing states," Clinton told cheering supporters at a victory
rally.
She coupled praise for Obama with a pledge to persevere in a
campaign in which she has become the decided underdog. "This race
isn't over yet," she said. "Neither of us has the total delegates
it takes to win."
Obama looked ahead to the Oregon primary later in the month and
to the general election campaign against Republican John McCain,
but the West Virginia defeat underscored his weakness among blue
collar voters who will be pivotal in the fall.
"This is our chance to build a new majority of Democrats and
independents and Republicans who know that four more years of
George Bush just won't do," Obama said in Missouri, which looms as
a battleground state in November.
"This is our moment to turn the page on the divisions and
distractions that pass for politics in Washington," added the man
seeking to become the first black presidential nominee of a major
party.
With votes from 69 percent of West Virginia's precincts counted,
Clinton was winning 66 percent of the vote, to 27 percent for
Obama.
Clinton's triumph approached the 70 percent of the vote she
gained in Arkansas, her best state to date. It came courtesy of an
overwhelmingly white electorate comprised of the kinds of voters
who have favored her throughout the primaries. Nearly a quarter
were 60 or older, and a similar number had no education beyond high
school. More than half were in families with incomes of $50,000 or
less, and the former first lady was wining a whopping 69 percent of
their votes.
Clinton won at least 16 of the 28 delegates at stake in West
Virginia, to seven for Obama, with 5 more to be allocated.
That left Obama with 1,875.5 delegates to 1,712 for Clinton. It
takes 2,026 to clinch the nomination at the party convention in
Denver this summer, a total raised by one to reflect the election
of Democrat Travis Childers to Congress in a special election in
Mississippi during the evening.
Clinton's aides contended that her strength with blue-collar
voters - already demonstrated in primaries in Ohio, Pennsylvania
and Indiana - makes her the more electable candidate in the fall.
In her remarks, Clinton said, "I deeply admire Sen. Obama,"
but she added, "our case is stronger." She said she had won
roughly 17 million votes in the primaries and caucuses to date.
The two rivals also vied in a close, nonbinding primary in
Nebraska. Obama won the state's caucuses earlier in the year, and
with them, a majority of its delegates.
Clinton arranged a meeting with superdelegates for Wednesday.
About 250 of them remain publicly uncommitted.
The delegate tally aside, the former first lady struggled to
overcome an emerging Democratic consensus that Obama effectively
wrapped up the nomination last week with a victory in the North
Carolina primary and a narrow loss in Indiana.
He picked up four superdelegates during the day, including Roy
Romer, former Democratic Party chairman.
"This race, I believe, is over," Romer told reporters on a
conference call. He said only Clinton can decide when to withdraw,
but he added: "There is a time we need to end it and direct
ourselves to the general election. I think that time is now."
Only five more primaries remain on the calendar, beginning next
week in Kentucky and Oregon, then Puerto Rico on June 1 and Montana
and South Dakota two days later.
There's another important date on the calendar, though, the May
31 meeting of a convention committee that will hear Clinton's
appeal to seat the delegations from disputed primaries in Florida
and Michigan.
Clinton has long argued to have the delegates seated - a
decision that would cut into Obama's delegate advantage - even
though the primaries were held so early in the year that they
violated Democratic party rules.
In recent weeks, Obama has signaled a willingness to compromise
on the issue as he has become more confident of his ultimate
victory in the fight for the nomination.
Clinton and Obama briefly shook hands on the Senate floor
Tuesday after interrupting their campaigns for a few hours to vote
on energy-related bills.
In the days since, close to 30 superdelegates have swung behind
Obama, evidence that party officials are beginning to coalesce
around the first-term Illinois senator who is seeking to become the
first black to win a major party presidential nomination. Three of
his new supporters formerly backed Clinton, who surrendered her
lead in superdelegates late last week for the first time since the
campaign began.
In his appearance in Cape Girardeau, Mo., Obama sketched the
case against McCain. "For two decades, he has supported policies
that have shifted the burden onto working people. And his only
answer to the problems created by George Bush's policies is to give
them another four years to fail," he said.
Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for McCain, said in response that
Obama's rhetoric showed "more of the same negative, partisan
politics that have paralyzed Washington for too long. Barack Obama
talks about change and bipartisanship, but he has never showed the
leadership needed to bridge party divides."
Clinton had spent parts of several days campaigning in West
Virginia in search of victory.
She refrained from criticizing Obama directly, but had a
cautionary word nonetheless for party leaders who seemed eager to
pivot to the fall campaign. "I keep telling people, no Democrat
has won the White House since 1916 without winning West Virginia,"
she said at Tudor's Biscuit World in the state's capital city.
Obama was in the state on Monday, but it was clear he was
looking beyond the primary.
He said several days ago he expected Clinton to win by
significant margins in West Virginia and then in Kentucky, which
holds its primary next week. He devoted more time to Oregon, which
also holds a primary next week, and announced plans to campaign in
several other states that loom as battlegrounds in the fall against
McCain.
Among them are Florida and Michigan, two states that held early
primaries in defiance of national Democratic Party rules. The two
combined have 44 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White
House, and Obama has not yet campaigned in either.
Obama also broke from his usual practice by wearing a flag pin
on his suit jacket. He told several thousand people at the
Charleston Civic Center that patriotism means more than saluting
flags and holding parades.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)