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Clinton looks to key debate
16/04/2008 22:43 - (SA)
Washington - Hillary Clinton looked to a debate on Wednesday in the key primary state of Pennsylvania to help salvage her long-shot hopes of defeating Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Obama's campaign has struggled in the past week as he has had to repeatedly explain remarks considered derogatory to Pennsylvania's working class voters - an important bloc in a contest taking place next Tuesday.
But a recent poll shows him with an 11 percentage point lead over Clinton among Democrats nationwide and, more importantly, a solid lead in delegates who will choose the nominee at the party's convention in August.
Obama leads Clinton in delegates 1 640-1 504, with only 10 contests remaining after Pennsylvania, the largest state still to vote. A big Clinton win in Pennsylvania would do little to narrow Obama's advantage, but it would keep her campaign alive.
Democrats fear that a long primary season and the candidates' harsh criticism of each other could damage the party's chances of defeating Republican John McCain in the November election.
The former first lady has labelled Obama an elitist for remarks he made about bitterness among economically hard-pressed working class voters. The first-term Illinois senator has countered with charges that Clinton was pandering by drinking a shot of whiskey in front of TV cameras and with stories of learning to shoot a gun at her father's knee.
'Excitement like JFK'
Obama got a boost ahead of the Pennsylvania primary with the endorsement of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Wednesday. The western Pennsylvania city's largest newspaper said he brings "an excitement and an electricity to American politics not seen since the days of John F Kennedy".
However, it said either Obama or Clinton would represent a welcome change from President George W Bush.
Because Democratic state contests are not winner-take-all in terms of delegates, it is extremely unlikely for Clinton to overcome Obama's lead in the elected delegate count.
Neither candidate will be able to clinch the 2 025 delegates needed to win the nomination without the approval of the party's nearly 800 super-delegates - elected officials and party insiders who can vote for whichever candidate they want at the party's convention. Of the super-delegates, 254 have said they back Clinton, and 226 are supporting Obama. His overall delegate lead includes the committed super-delegates.
Clinton faced further challenges as a new poll showed that more Americans have an unfavourable view of her than at any time since 1992, when her husband was elected to his first term.
Unfavourable view of Clinton
Fifty-four percent said they have an unfavourable view of Clinton, up from 40% after she won the New Hampshire primary in early January, according to The Washington Post-ABC News poll. The survey, which has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points, found Obama's ratings also had dropped, but remained more positive than negative.
In Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Obama dismissed a voter's suggestion that Clinton, when she called him elitist, had "bordered on (calling him) uppity".
"It's politics," Obama, who aims to become the country's first black president, said at a town-hall meeting. "This is what we do politically, when we start getting behind in races. We start going on the attack."
Clinton, meanwhile, was jolted with a fresh reminder that party elders have no appetite for a campaign that drags into the convention in late August. Clinton supporter Barney Frank, a Democrat who is also a super-delegate, said the candidate who trails in the delegate chase should quit by June 3. "Probably sooner," he told The Associated Press in an interview.
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