The hopeful note on which Tuesday began for Hillary Clinton went flat as more superdelegates announced their support for Barack Obama, and one of the Clintons’ staunchest supporters conceded defeat is a strong likelihood.

With polls projecting a double-digit victory over Obama in West Virginia, Clinton was expected to get the boost she needs to remain in the Democratic presidential race . But even a big win was unlikely to stem the tide of superdelegate endorsements now shifting toward her opponent. Twenty-eight delegates are up for grabs in the Mountain State, and they will be awarded proportionally.

Former Democratic Party chairman and Colorado Gov. Roy Romer and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, both of whom will be superdelegates at the August party convention, said Tuesday that they were backing Obama.

Also, Washington, D.C., superdelegate Anita Bonds said she’ll back Obama, and a pledged delegate from Maryland, Jack Johnson — who party officials said is not bound by the state’s Feb. 12 primary — said late Monday he will cast his ballot for Obama.

Romer, who has a long relationship with the Clintons, told reporters in a conference call Tuesday that it was a difficult decision, “but the math is controlling. This race, I believe, is over.”

“Senator Obama has accumulated a lead in delegates in terms of the primaries, caucuses and superdelegates that cannot be overcome, and I believe, therefore, that is time for the party to unify, get beyond the primary season and begin the general election,” Romer said.

On Monday James Carville, the Democratic strategist who has stuck with Hillary and former President Bill Clinton through thick and thin, told a Furman University audience that Clinton’s chances may have passed her by, according The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper.

Saying he believes Clinton should remain in the race until the last dog dies, Carville said, “I still hear some dogs barking.”

He added, “I’m for Senator Clinton, but I think the great likelihood is that Obama will be the nominee.”

Earlier in the day, the Clinton campaign was pointing to new poll results that buoyed their game plan of staying in the race despite seemingly insurmountable odds of gathering the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination.

According to the Associated Press tally, Obama has 1,874 total convention delegates to Clinton’s 1,697. The candidates need 2,025 delegates to clinch the nomination, although that number is the subject of a dispute: The Clinton campaign believes the number should be higher because it does not include delegate counts from Florida or Michigan, which were disqualified for holding their primaries earlier than the party’s rules dictated.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll reveals that Democratic leaning voters would prefer Clinton to stay in the race rather than drop out by 64-35 percent. Only 1 percent had no opinion.

While more people said they believed Clinton’s staying in the race is hurting the party, a majority — 56 percent of Democratic-leaning voters — said they didn’t believe it made a difference.

In the USA Today/Gallup poll, given the choice of Clinton dropping out, both Clinton and Obama staying in the race, or Obama dropping out, 55 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent voters said both should continue on — although that number shrank 5 percentage points from a poll released May 4 asking the same question.

Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe, speaking with FOX News on Tuesday, gave no indication that Clinton would be letting up.

“When we finish this process we will be very close in the delegates. We’ll be ahead in the popular vote. Then, the argument’s got to be, who is best to take on John McCain,” McAuliffe said. “Today, Hillary wins Florida, Missouri, Ohio — a poll out in Kentucky today, she beats John McCain in Kentucky.”

Both candidates showed better than McCain in the Washington Post poll, but the survey showed Obama had a slight edge over Clinton in match-ups with McCain: the Clinton-McCain head-to-head put her ahead 49-46 percent, whereas Obama had a 51-44 percent lead over McCain.

McAuliffe dismissed the idea that there have been negotiations between the Clinton and Obama camps to get Clinton the vice presidential nomination should she bow out. “We’re fighting for the nomination, and he’s fighting for the nomination. And until this is over . . . which is three weeks — we’ve been in this for 17 months — let’s let the next three weeks finish out,” he said.

Both Clinton and Obama were in Washington, D.C., Tuesday morning for Senate business, and then were off the races again. The two even shared a moment of cordiality on the Senate floor, when Obama walked over to Clinton to shake hands. She smiled as he approached and the two shared a brief conversation with Sen Ken Salazar. Obama then patted Clinton on the arm as they chatted and again before walking off.

After finishing their Senate business, Clinton headed back to West Virginia and Obama headed to the Midwest, where he planned to spend the night in Missouri, an expected battleground state in November. Obama was not planning any primary night speeches after his expected loss.

Clinton is hoping a convincing win Tuesday would raise doubts about Obama’s electability, but her rival was already mapping out his strategy for the upcoming presidential campaign against McCain, the presumptive Republican candidate.

Obama is now mathematically within reach of clinching the Democratic nomination by the end of the primary season on June 3 — even if he loses half of the remaining state primaries in Kentucky, Oregon, South Dakota and Montana. (Puerto Rico also holds its primary on June 1.)

Neither Obama nor Clinton can reach the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the nomination just through the final contests. That means the superdelegates — the nearly 800 party leaders and elected officials who may vote for whichever candidate they choose regardless of the state primary or caucus results — are essential to capturing the nomination.

Clinton’s best chance to slow Obama is to buy herself more time by moving back the finish line. She will get that chance May 31 when the Democratic National Committee’s rules panel considers proposals to seat the delegations from Florida and Michigan, which were disqualified after they violated party rules by holding their primaries too early.

If the delegates are reinstated, that would increase the number of delegates needed to get the nomination to 2,209. Clinton would also cut into Obama’s delegate lead since she won the primaries in both states.

But even under the best scenario for Clinton, Obama would still be left with a lead of about 100 delegates, with fewer than 250 superdelegates left to be claimed.

“We need to do well everywhere,” said chief Clinton strategist Howard Wolfson. “Our hope is that superdelegates will look at the results in some of these states and recognize that Senator Clinton would be the best nominee against John McCain.”

Clinton implored West Virginians at four stops Monday to send her forward with a convincing win.

“This may be the most important vote you’ve ever cast,” she told a crowd in Fairmont. “Let’s have a huge vote in West Virginia.”

And she invoked history to counter the inexorable math of the delegate count that’s falling into place for her opponent.

“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 Charleston.

Obama made only one appearance in the state, talking up his love of country as he sought to dispel critics’ claims that he is not particularly patriotic or ready to be commander in chief. He expressed his conviction that veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars deserve better care from their government when they come home.

“At a time when we’re facing the largest homecoming since the Second World War, the true test of our patriotism is whether we will serve our returning heroes as well as they’ve served us,” he told several thousand people at the Charleston Civic Center.

Questioned about his patriotism, Obama has been wearing an American flag pin on his suit jacket. He has said he stopped wearing such pins routinely because he felt they had become a substitute for “true patriotism” after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

But in every step now, he is mindful of the gathering struggle with McCain, a veteran both of politics and war who will exploit Obama’s short national resume as surely as Clinton has tried to do.

Obama is mounting a two-week tour that will take him to the remaining primary states such as South Dakota and Oregon, but will concentrate on November battlegrounds, including Missouri, Florida and Michigan, which have already held their nominating contests.

He is trying to make up lost ground in Florida and Michigan because he pledged nine months ago not to campaign in either state because their contests were held before Feb. 5 in defiance of party rules. He even had his name taken off the Michigan ballot.

Clinton’s last best hope is to use strong showings in West Virginia and Kentucky to make the case that Obama is weak among key Democratic constituents, most prominently white, working-class voters.

Lopsided victories in both states would not materially change Obama’s prospects nationally. But it would lay bare the racial divisions and other polarizing aspects of the protracted and often bitter Democratic contest.

Increasing numbers of Democratic primary voters have become entrenched behind their candidate and have said they would not support the other candidate in the fall — a rift the party is eager to start healing.

Obama has been careful not to declare himself the nominee prematurely for risk of turning off Clinton voters and the candidate herself, whose support he will need in the general election. His campaign, however, has focused on a general election showdown with McCain.

“John McCain has gone unchallenged for far too long, and we’re going to make sure that voters in competitive states know the choice in this election between changing Washington and the third term of George Bush’s failed policies that McCain is offering,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.

Click here to see the Washington Post/ABC News national poll results (1,122 adults, May 8-11, +/- 3 percentage points).

Click here to read more about the USA Today/Gallup national poll (537 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independendts, May 8-11, +/- 5 percentage points).

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 6:05 am and is filed under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Top Story, West Virginia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.