Clinton claims Kentucky but Obama targets milestone

Hillary Clinton arrives for a campaign stop at Lynn's Paradise Cafe and gift shop, in Louisville, Kentucky
©AFP - Robyn Beck

LOUISVILLE (AFP) - Hillary Clinton scored a consolation win in Tuesday's Kentucky primary, but Barack Obama remained on course to surpass a milestone toward the Democrats' White House nomination.

The former first lady was projected to be the big winner in the bourbon and horseracing state of Kentucky, whose blue-collar voters and older women formed the same kind of pro-Clinton coalition seen in other states.

The New York senator vowed anew never to give up until after the closely fought Democratic primary season ends on June 3.

"It's not just Kentucky bluegrass that's music to my ears. It's the sound of your overwhelming vote of confidence even in the face of some pretty tough odds," she told raucous supporters here.

Barack Obama says he need 110 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination
©AFP/Getty Images/File - Anne Sherwood

"This is one of the closest races for a party's nomination in recent history. We're winning the popular vote and I'm more determined than ever to see that every vote is cast and every ballot is counted," Clinton said.

With more than 86 percent of the Kentucky vote counted, Clinton was trouncing Obama by 65 percent to 31.

But Obama was tipped to take the liberal western state of Oregon, where voting was ending at 0300 GMT Wednesday, and clinch a symbolic majority of elected delegates after more than five months of Democratic nominating battles.

Voters cast ballots at the Multnomah County elections office in Portland
©AFP/Getty Images - Craig Mitchelldyer

Obama, cementing his bid to be the party's champion in November's election showdown against Republican John McCain, was set for his own victory rally in Iowa, the scene of his shock win in the first nominating contest in January.

The Iowa event was to remind Americans "that this was a very unlikely journey that we've taken," Obama told MSNBC, while attacking McCain for offering a "third term" for President George W. Bush.

But fearful of provoking the combative Clinton, the Obama campaign denied it was adopting a triumphalist tone about securing a majority of pledged delegates.

"I just see this as a major step. It's not the end," Minnesota's Obama-backing Senator Amy Klobuchar said on MSNBC after Kentucky was declared for Clinton.

Klobuchar dismissed Clinton's argument that Obama would struggle with white working-class voters against McCain.

Obama, portrait of a candidate
©AFPTV

"The more people see Barack Obama ... the better we're going to do with the voters and the people of this country," she said.

But Clinton's campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, said the Kentucky outcome was enough to give superdelegates reason to doubt Obama's capacity to win against McCain in November.

"Everybody keeps saying it's over, but Hillary Clinton keeps winning in purple states," he said, referring to swing states that are a mix of Republican red and Democratic blue.

"Every single poll we have seen shows Hillary Clinton beating John McCain."

According to RealClearPolitics.com, Obama had 1,610 pledged delegates heading into Tuesday's primaries, just 17 short of a majority on the final stretch of the Democratic primary campaign.

John McCain
©AFP/Getty Images - Eric Thayer

With party elders known as "superdelegates" thrown in, the website said he had 1,915 delegates in total -- so needed 111 more to reach the newly revised winning line of 2,026, counting a recently elected Democrat from Mississippi.

A total of 103 delegates was up for grabs in Oregon and Kentucky.

McAuliffe turned to no lesser an authority than Karl Rove, Bush's long-time counselor and a hate figure for most Democrats, to burnish his arguments about electability.

An electoral map prepared by Rove's consulting firm and leaked to the press showed Clinton beating McCain easily in November. The race with Obama as the Democratic nominee was suggested to be much tighter.

But that contention, and Clinton's claim that she now leads in the popular vote including disputed primaries in Florida and Michigan, has not cut much ice with superdelegates as more party elders drift towards Obama.

Both Obama and Clinton were heading to Florida Wednesday. The Sunshine State's primary results, like Michigan's, were voided by Democratic bosses over a scheduling row.

Heading to the final contests in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota, Clinton's hopes hinge in large part on getting the Florida and Michigan delegates reinstated at a Democratic National Committee meeting on May 31.