BY MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
RALEIGH, N.C. — Barack Obama’s dramatic victory in North Carolina all but guaranteed him the Democratic nomination for president as pressure intensified for Hillary Clinton to end her campaign.

Obama’s supporters are lobbying the party’s remaining uncommitted superdelegates to quickly coalesce behind their candidate. They cited his 14-point victory in North Carolina, which made it virtually impossible for Clinton to overtake him before the final contest next month.

The effort swayed four uncommitted superdelegates to publicly endorse Obama — two in North Carolina, one in California and Florida. A Virginia superdelegate abandoned Clinton for Obama in the face of a growing consensus amongst political pundits that the race effectively ended Tuesday night. Or, to use the less-delicate phrasing that Clinton’s home-state newspaper, the New York Post, applied to her candidacy in a banner headline Wednesday morning: “TOAST!”

Clinton said she had no plans to quit. As her campaign begged the uncommitted superdelegates to let the primary process run its course, she moved on to West Virginia, which holds the first of the six remaining contests on Tuesday.

At this point, though, the remaining primaries are less important than the so-called superdelegate primary, the behind-the-scenes battle for the support of party insiders who will ultimately determine who goes on to face Republican John McCain in the fall.

Between his overwhelming victory in North Carolina and narrow loss in Indiana, Obama strengthened his lead over Clinton in pledged delegates. In North Carolina he picked up 66 delegates to Clinton’s 49; In Indiana, she got 37 to his 33, with two left to be allocated.

That brought Obama’s lead to 1,840 to Clinton’s 1,684, according to an Associated Press tally of pledged delegates and superdelegates.

Though most of the remaining primary states appear favorable to Clinton, it would take unprecedented margins of victory for her to overtake Obama.

The decision now rests in the hands of roughly 270 uncommitted superdelegates.

A day after Tuesday’s primaries, both campaigns put their own spins on the results in an increasingly intense push for support.

Obama’s victory in North Carolina can be explained simply, said Andy Taylor, a political scientist at N.C. State University.

Clinton was not able to attract enough support from white voters, despite her strength with blue-collar whites, to overcome Obama’s overwhelming support with African-Americans and, to a lesser degree, young, educated whites.

“The bottom line is that it all came down to race,” he said.

The racial split that helped define the race factored heavily in the arguments both campaigns are making to superdelegates.

Though Clinton suffered a lopsided loss in North Carolina, her campaign highlighted one of the few bright spots for her in exit polls: support of blue-collar whites. Her campaign argued that the group will prove pivotal in the general election, and

Obama’s failure to win their support will doom him in November.

See List of NC Superdelegates

“We think the results … strengthen the case that she will be the strongest candidate for the Democratic party in November,” her chief strategist, Geoff Garin, told reporters on a conference call.

Obama supporters turned that argument back on Clinton, pointing to Obama’s extremely strong showing with black voters in North Carolina — nine out of 10 African-Americans backed him. If party leaders deny him the nomination despite his lead in pledged delegates, Obama’s supporters fear African-Americans might stay home in November, giving McCain the White House.

“The African-American vote is an extremely important part of the Democratic base,” said Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., a superdelegate and one of Obama’s biggest supporters in the state. “If Obama is not the nominee, African-Americans would be extremely disappointed, to say the least.”

Butterfield and other Obama supporters stepped up pressure on Clinton to end her campaign.

“There’s a time to compete and a time for consensus, and this is a time for consensus. I hope Sen. Clinton now recognizes that Sen. Obama will clinch the nomination, and do what’s best for the party,” he said.

Two uncommitted North Carolina superdelegates came out for Obama on Wednesday.

State party chairman Jerry Meek seemed to dismiss Clinton’s argument that Obama’s relative weakness with white working-class voters will deny him a victory in the fall.

“With Barack Obama as our nominee, North Carolina can deliver its electoral votes to a Democrat,” he said in a statement.

The white-support argument also did not sway Jeanette Council, a Cumberland County commissioner. She decided over the weekend to cast her superdelegate vote for Obama.

“I studied the issues and looked at the candidates, and decided on the one who had the most to offer,” she said.

The superdelegate news out of North Carolina was not all bad for Clinton. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., said before the primary that he would vote for whichever candidate carried his mountainous district in the western part of the state.

Shuler’s district is heavy with the white, blue-collar voters that formed the base of Clinton’s support, and she won it easily.
Shuler was the only uncommitted North Carolina superdelegate in Congress to choose sides after Tuesday’s vote. Reps.
Bob Etheridge, Mike McIntyre and Brad Miller all hewed to Clinton’s request for patience, saying they wanted to give the process time to resolve itself.

“I’m going to let it settle out for a couple of days, look closely at the results in North Carolina and my district, see where the candidates are, and then make a decision on whether I should indicate my support,” Miller said.

But, he said, if the primary season ends with Obama holding roughly the same lead over Clinton, he would have a hard time overriding the voters’ will. His overriding concern, he said, was the health of the party going forward.

“In four weeks, if Sen. Obama ends the contest with a 150- or 160-delegate lead and Sen. Clinton ends up as the nominee, Sen. Obama’s supporters will not think that it ended fairly. I think that will be a hard breach to heal,” he said.

Obama now has the support of eight of North Carolina’s 17 superdelegates, compared with three for Clinton. Six remain undecided.

Clinton’s campaign revealed Wednesday that she had loaned it $6.4 million over the past month, on top of the $5 million she pumped into her coffers in January.