Clinton scores big West Virginia win

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton scored a big victory over front-runner Barack Obama in West Virginia on Tuesday, slowing Obama's march to the Democratic presidential nomination but making barely a dent in his sizable lead.

Clinton's easy win in a state dominated by the white working-class voters who have been her biggest supporters gave her fresh ammunition to argue she is the Democrat with the best chance to beat Republican John McCain in November's presidential election.

But Obama, an Illinois senator, retains a nearly insurmountable advantage in delegates who will select the nominee at the party convention in August, and West Virginia had only 28 delegates at stake.

Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady, hopes her big victory in West Virginia will help fan doubts about Obama's ability to win important swing states in November. She has vowed to keep fighting despite her dwindling prospects and a mounting campaign debt.

"I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe that I could be the best president for West Virginia and America and that I was the stronger candidate to take on John McCain in the fall," she said at a rally in Logan, West Virginia on Monday.

But a newly minted Obama supporter, former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, said it is now impossible for Clinton to overcome Obama's lead.

"The math is controlling. This race, I believe, is over," Romer said on a conference call sponsored by the Obama campaign.

Obama, already looking to November, visited the general election battleground of Missouri on Tuesday, with stops planned in Michigan on Wednesday and in Florida next week.

After West Virginia, five more contests remain in the Democratic nominating battle with a combined 189 delegates at stake. Oregon and Kentucky vote on May 20, while Puerto Rico votes on June 1 and Montana and South Dakota vote on June 3.

A delegate count by MSNBC gives Obama 1,874 delegates to Clinton's 1,702, leaving him 151 short of the 2,025 needed to clinch the nomination. But neither candidate can win without help from superdelegates -- nearly 800 party officials who are free to back any candidate.

Obama has been gaining ground among superdelegates for weeks and picked up four more on Tuesday, including New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. He now has a narrow lead over Clinton among superdelegates with less than 250 still uncommitted.

(Additional reporting by Deborah Charles, Rick Cowan and Andy Sullivan; Editing by David Wiessler and Chris Wilson)

(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at http:/blogs.reuters.com/trail08/ )