Obama shrugs off West Virginia defeat
WASHINGTON (AFP) — White House front-runner Barack Obama captured new momentum Wednesday with backing from more Democratic leaders, despite his pummelling by Hillary Clinton in the West Virginia primary.
The former first lady routed the Illinois senator by 67 to 26 percent in West Virginia, in a contest that highlighted Obama's struggle to win white, working-class voters who will play a key role in November's general election.
"I am in this race, and so are you, because we both know the stakes in this election are too high to stay on the sidelines," Clinton said in an email appeal to supporters for new donations after winning West Virginia Tuesday.
"So let's keep going together, you and me. Let's keep driving our campaign forward, and let's keep winning," she said, hinting that she will fight on through the five remaining primaries.
However, far more significant than West Virginia's 28 delegates is the bloc of nearly 800 Democratic "superdelegates" who could have the casting vote in the bruising nominating epic.
Obama Wednesday won the support of four more superdelegates -- an Indiana congressman, two Democratic student leaders and the chairwoman of Democrats Abroad. Clinton secured the backing of one party leader in Tennessee.
Obama was also endorsed by three former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who joined ex-Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker in extolling the Democrat's capacity to take on "monumental economic challenges."
According to the latest tally by the independent website RealClearPolitics, Obama now has 1,883 delegates in total to Clinton's 1,717, putting him considerably closer to the winning line of 2,025.
But the New York senator's communications chief, Howard Wolfson, said the West Virginia result should give superdelegates pause for thought.
Pundits had been near-universal in declaring the race to be over, he said on MSNBC television.
"And yet they came out in droves... and they voted not just in a narrow way but overwhelmingly for Senator Clinton despite the fact they were told the race was over," Wolfson said.
"She's connecting with the voters the Democrats need to win in November," he said. "We're looking forward to the next month."
According to a new national poll by Quinnipiac University, 60 percent of Democrats want Obama to pick Clinton as his vice presidential running mate. Both candidates have declared such talk to be premature.
The poll also showed Obama leading Republican John McCain in a November match-up, by 47 percent to 40. But 63 percent of Democrats wanted Clinton to stay in the primary race.
Clinton was taking stock in Washington Wednesday with key donors and supporters, before hitting the airwaves for an evening blitz of all the network and cable news shows.
Obama was already looking past the Democratic primary race, which ends on June 3, with campaign stops in Michigan. Along with Florida's, the state's delegates have been stripped by Democratic leaders in a scheduling row.
The senator vying to become the first African-American president had written off West Virginia, and was limbering up instead for a general-election clash against McCain.
In Michigan, Obama rolled out proposals to kick-start US manufacturing including Detroit's beleaguered auto industry, featuring 210 billion dollars of investment in clean technologies and transport infrastructure.
The Democrat said McCain had been right to state in January that lost manufacturing jobs would not be regained.
"But where he's wrong is in suggesting that there's nothing we can do to replace those jobs or create new ones," Obama said in a speech in the Detroit suburb of Warren.
"Where he's wrong is in not offering new solutions or economic policies that are different from what (President) George Bush has given us for eight long years. That's wrong. That's giving up.
"And that's not what this country is about."
However, exit polls out of West Virginia underlined potential pitfalls for Obama ahead. Clinton won white voters by 68 percent, and won 72 percent of lower-income voters, according to MSNBC.
And worryingly for Obama, the exit data said half of all voters believed he shared the race-baiting views of his fiery former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
