Clinton vows to press ahead despite money woes, Obama's superdelegate gains

Obama's decisive victory by 14 points in North Carolina and a narrow miss in Indiana Tuesday night has increased the pressure on roughly 270 uncommitted superdelegates _ party officials free to vote as they chose _ to line up behind him.

His campaign on Wednesday began to craft a general election strategy, and relayed word of the four endorsements, expected to be made public later in the day. Both disclosures were meant to signal fresh confidence that he would take the nomination after the grueling primary marathon.

Clinton vowed to remain in the race "until there's a nominee." She declined to say whether that meant the Democratic National Convention in August.

She spoke from West Virginia, which votes next week, a visit meant to underscore her determination to stay the course. She also arranged a private meeting later in the day with uncommitted superdelegates.

The split decision Tuesday night cost Clinton the last best chance she had of winning the nomination, and their 16-month battle contest appeared to be nearing its climax. Obama, a 46-year-old first-term senator seeking to become the first black U.S. president, is now fewer than 200 delegates away from clinching the nomination.

In a largely symbolic move, former Sen. George McGovern, a 1972 presidential candidate and a close friend of the Clintons, switched sides on Wednesday and urged the New York senator to withdraw from the race. Other top Democrats piled on similar pressure in a conference call with reporters.

Democrats fear the long nomination fight will damage the party's chances at defeating Republican John McCain in the November general elections.

McGovern is not a superdelegate _ the group that will likely decide the nomination. But his defection was the second by a high profile Clinton backer in under two weeks and could be telling of an upcoming trend. Last week, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew _ a superdelegate _ switched allegiance to Obama, despite having been named to the top party job by former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton, intent on becoming the country's first female president, jumped back into her campaign, with her sights set on West Virginia next week, followed by Kentucky and Oregon _ none of which carries a large delegate prize.

She issued a plea for more funds _ an appeal that was followed by an announcement that she had again loaned her indebted campaign more funds _ a total of $6.4 million (euro4.1 million) in the past month.

"This candidacy and this campaign continues on," Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson said Wednesday on CNN.

The loan further reflected the financial problems she is facing in contrast to Obama and his fundraising prowess. Clinton had loaned herself $5 million earlier this year.

An invigorated Obama took the day off. His campaign dropped broad hints it was time for remaining unaligned superdelegates to take sides and settle the race.

In a memorandum to superdelegates, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe noted the delegate math was stacked against Clinton, arguing she would need to win 68 percent of the remaining delegates to win _ an extremely unlikely scenario.

"The delegate math gets exceptionally harder for Senator Clinton every day," Obama communications director Robert Gibbs said.

It was among the superdelegates _ even more than in the six remaining primaries _ that the Democratic drama was bound to play out.

Obama won at least 94 delegates and Clinton at least 79 in North Carolina and Indiana combined, with 14 still to be allocated. As of early Wednesday morning, his delegate total reached 1,840.5 to 1,688 for Clinton in The Associated Press count, out of 2,025 needed to win the nomination in August.

But with only 217 delegates at stake in the remaining contests, it is essentially mathematically impossible for either candidate to secure the necessary number of elected delegates _ making superdelegate support the linchpin to winning the nomination.

Along with the remaining six Democratic contests, Obama was also expected to turn attention to general election states, aides said. The shift reflected his confidence in securing the nomination.

McCain has been running a general election campaign for weeks, focusing his attention on unifying his party after having secured the necessary delegates to clinch the nomination.

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