Clinton takes symbolic win in W.Va.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton coasted to a large but largely symbolic victory in working-class West Virginia on Tuesday, handing Barack Obama one of his worst defeats of the campaign yet scarcely slowing his march toward the Democratic presidential nomination.

“The White House is won in the swing states. And I am winning the swing states,” Clinton told cheering supporters at a victory rally.

She coupled praise with Obama with a pledge to persevere in a campaign in which she has become the decided underdog. “This race isn’t over yet,” she said. “Neither of us has the total delegates it takes to win.”

Obama looked ahead to the Oregon primary later in the month and to the general election campaign against Republican John McCain, but the West Virginia defeat underscored his weakness among blue-collar voters who will be pivotal in the fall.

“This is our chance to build a new majority of Democrats and independents and Republicans who know that four more years of George Bush just won’t do,” Obama said in Missouri, which looms as a battleground state in November.

“This is our moment to turn the page on the divisions and distractions that pass for politics in Washington,” added the man seeking to become the first black presidential nominee of a major party.

With votes from 23 percent of West Virginia’s precincts counted, Clinton was winning 63 percent of the vote, to 30 percent for Obama.

Interviews with West Virginians leaving their polling places suggested Clinton’s victory could be as overwhelming as any she has gained to date, delivered by an overwhelmingly white electorate consisting of the kinds of voters who favored her in past primaries. Nearly a quarter were 60 or older, and a similar number had no education beyond high school. More than half were in families with incomes of $50,000 or less, and the former first lady was wining a whopping 69 percent of their votes.

Clinton won at least 15 of the 28 delegates at stake in West Virginia, with 13 more to be allocated.

That left Obama with 1,875.5 delegates, to 1,712 for Clinton, out of 2,025 needed to clinch the nomination at the party convention in Denver this summer.

Even so, Clinton’s aides contended that her strength with blue-collar voters — already demonstrated in primaries in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana — makes her the more electable candidate in the fall.

In her remarks, Clinton said, “I deeply admire Sen. Obama,” but she added, “our case is stronger.” She said she had won roughly 17 million votes in the primaries and caucuses to date.

Clinton arranged a meeting with superdelegates for today. About 250 of them remain publicly uncommitted.