Hillary Clinton clinches Pennsylvania primary

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: Hillary Clinton kept her wobbling White House quest alive Tuesday, triumphing over Barack Obama in Pennsylvania's rancorous Democratic primary. Clinton supporters at an election-night celebration here cheered and swapped high fives as all the major US networks called Pennsylvania for the New York senator seeking to be America's first woman president. The margin of her win over her Illinois rival remained to be seen, but with 32 per cent of precincts reporting, Clinton was said to be leading with 54 per cent to 46 for Obama. Many pundits had said it would take a double-digit victory to stave off calls for Clinton to quit the epic Democratic nomination race. But the former first lady rejected that argument, and won surprising backing from Obama. Speaking earlier on XM satellite radio, Obama defined victory as "50 plus 1." "So if Senator Clinton gets over 50 per cent, she's won the state. I don't try to pretend that I enjoy getting 45 per cent and that's a moral victory. We've lost the state," he said. Clinton told reporters in the Philadelphia suburb of Conshohocken that a simple victory would be sufficient as she seeks the party's nomination to run in the November polls against Republican John McCain. "I think a win under any circumstances is a terrific accomplishment," she said. Clinton aides at a victory party here quickly pointed out that she had been vastly outspent by Obama in Pennsylvania, raising questions about why he could not win the race. They also said she would have enough money to go head to head with Obama, and said last week's debate, one of the Illinois senator's poorest of the campaign, was a turning point in the Pennsylvania race. Obama had already downplayed the likelihood that he could win in Pennsylvania, but pointed out that he had whittled down her lead in most polls from 20 points to single figures. Clinton badly needed a fresh burst of momentum ahead of the next round of contests in Indiana and North Carolina on May 6, which are followed quickly by the last six voting showdowns of the nominating marathon into early June. Clinton played up Obama's significant fundraising edge, which has allowed him to triple her advertising power in the northeastern state, according to her campaign's estimates. "Maybe the question ought to be, why can't he close the deal with his extraordinary financial advantage, why can't he win a state like this one if that is the way it turns out?" she said. Clinton was making her case to Democratic superdelegates, the party officials who will effectively crown the nominee at the party's August convention, since neither candidate is likely to reach the 2,025 pledged delegates needed to win outright. She is trailing Obama in the total number of nominating contests won, pledged delegates apportioned in those showdowns, the popular vote, and the multi-million-dollar campaign financing race. Even a 10-point victory for Clinton in Pennsylvania would not do much to cut into her rival's delegate lead, as the state's 158 delegates were being doled out under the Democratic complex system of proportional representation. Obama leads by 1,650 total delegates to Clinton's 1,508, according to independent website RealClearPolitics.com. But her victory is likely to bolster Clinton's argument to superdelegates that only she can solidify the Democratic powerbase, woo socially conservative working-class voters, and prevail in crucial presidential battlegrounds. Obama, who would be the first African-American US president, has in past weeks sharpened his attacks on Clinton. But his remarks that some small-town Americans were "bitter" over the economic squeeze, and so clung to religion and guns, may have dampened his poll surge in Pennsylvania.