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Sunday: Hillary Clinton Clinton gestures to supporters outside the Anna Marie Jarvis Home in Webster, W. Va. (AP Photo)

Hillary Clinton was the only candidate campaigning on Mother’s Day Sunday, taking her daughter Chelsea to church before hitting the trail in an effort to pull off an upset and win the Democratic primary nomination against the numerical odds and pundits’ predictions.

The New York senator started the day braving thunderstorms in Huntington, W.Va., to listen to a church sermon on Mother’s Day delivered by Dr. Paul Russell of First United Methodist Church. Clinton shook hands with congregants after the service.

Clinton followed that with an afternoon appearance at the home of Anna Jarvis in Grafton, W.Va., site of the original Mother’s Day celebration 100 years ago. West Virginia Democrats vote on Tuesday. Speaking afterward to a group of about 150 people in a train station, Clinton quoted some of the e-mails of support she’s gotten from people around the country.

“I guess my favorite message was from a woman named Angela. ‘Keep strong,’ she said. ‘It’s not over until the lady in the pantsuit says it is,’” Clinton said.

The strength of moms, and women in general, is a theme Clinton wants to play up as she reminds Democrats of her strong support among female voters. They have been a major source of backing for the New York senator, who wants to become the first woman president in the U.S.

Overall, white women voters have carried Clinton over Barack Obama by a 60 to 36 percent, according to exit polls. However, that lead shrinks to 54-43 percent among college-educated, white women.

Clinton’s argument in West Virginia — as well as Kentucky and Oregon, which vote in 10 days — is that she is a better candidate against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain than is her Democratic opponent, Barack Obama.

“On Tuesday, voters in West Virginia, which is a key swing state, are going to get to weigh in. We’re going to have primaries upcoming in other states after that. They’re going to have their say, too. Senator Clinton is committed to her supporters and to the voters in the upcoming states to carry this through and secure the nomination,” Clinton strategist Howard Wolfson told “FOX News Sunday.”

But even as Clinton and her team says they will fight to the finish, The Associated Press is running stories headlined “Clinton’s Fall” and ‘Clinton’s Moments,” recapping her race for the presidency with a decidedly past-tense tone.

While the wire service writes Clinton “is fighting on for a prize few believe she can win anymore,” Obama surrogates are suggesting ways in which she could politely bow out of the race while keeping the party together and not damaging Obama’s chances in the Fall.

“I know Hillary Clinton well, I know her husband well. These are great Democrats, they care about the country very much, and I’m, I’m entirely confident as I speak to you this morning that we’re going to be a very united party behind Barack Obama very, very quickly and to face the challenges that John McCain and the Republicans pose in the election in November,” Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who briefly ran for the nomination and now backs Obama, told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Campaigning in Oregon over the weekend, Obama reveled in his new lead in superdelegates — 276-271 — but was careful to avoid any outward sign of overconfidence. He told reporters it is premature to ask whether he would offer Clinton a spot on the Fall ticket or help her erase her campaign debt, positions repeated Sunday by his chief strategist David Axelrod.

Obama did say he would want Clinton to “feel good about the process” and be “on his team,” a notion Axelrod undercut by suggesting that most superdelegates will break for Obama quickly.

“I think people, out of respect for the process and the candidates — some may withhold their judgment. But I think we’re going to — we’ve been announcing several, you know, each day for the last few days. I think we’re going to continue to — we’re going to continue to unfurl these endorsements on a regular basis here,” he said.

Even a dramatic primary win by Clinton will do little to put a dent in Obama’s overall lead in delegates.

“There’s just no math right now for Hillary Clinton. She has a case for her strategy, but doesn’t have a case for the arithmetic of it,” said FOX News contributor Susan Estrich.

Still, Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe argued the race won’t be over until June 3.

“No one is the nominee. Everyone needs to be clear, until someone gets the magic number of the delegates, 2209, you are not the nominee of the Democratic Party,” McAuliffe told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“I think most of the superdelegates will wait until the end, until everybody has voted. They want everybody to be voting in this process. And then, at that point, I think, you know who is going to make the decision. I believe we’ll be ahead in the popular vote. We’ll be within 100 on the delegates, and then who is the best to win the general election?” he asked.

FOX News’ James Rosen and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Top Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.