Democrats near finish line

By Scott Helman, Globe Staff

Fifty-six contests. Hundreds of millions of dollars raised and spent. More than 35 million votes cast. And finally, five months later, one apparent winner.

Barely.

As the epic Democratic presidential primary battle finally comes to conclusion Tuesday with votes in South Dakota and Montana, Senator Barack Obama is trying to round up enough superdelegate endorsements so he can declare victory by reaching the threshold of 2,118 delegates required to seal the nomination. He was 41.5 short as of tonight, with 31 at stake in today's contests.

But even as Hillary Clinton sends mixed signals about her willingness to leave the race, Obama, unlike his counterparts in recent presidential cycles, is not exactly sprinting across the finish line.

Over the last three months, the Illinois senator has won just six of 14 contests, one less than the seven Clinton has won. (They essentially tied in Texas as she won the primary and he won the caucus.) A loss to Clinton in either primary today would underscore Obama's relatively weak finish and make his already narrow victory over the New York senator even slimmer.

"Usually there's this I-want-to-be-with-the-winner mentality, and you're not seeing that this time," said David Johnson, a Republican pollster who heads the firm Strategic Vision.

Obama and his supporters contend that victory is victory, and that the nomination contest has always been a race for delegates. But some analysts say his less-than-overwhelming recent showing signals trouble -- or at least hurdles -- as he begins a general election campaign against presumptive GOP nominee John McCain.

"To me it indicates he's weaker than people would hope," said Harwood McClerking, a political scientist at Ohio State University. "I was surprised that he's been regularly losing over the last month and a half when people had given him the election."

Johnson said the fact that Obama has not closed with a string of victories is not, by itself, cause for worry. He noted that Jimmy Carter lost primaries at the end of the 1976 nomination race but still won the general election, and Ronald Reagan four years later lost late primaries in Pennsylvania and Michigan but beat Carter in the fall.

The real concern, Johnson said, is the story behind Obama's recent losses: his lackluster showing among white, blue-collar voters, who are key voting blocs in states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania that Democrats have always had to win.

Indeed, the divided nature of the Democratic electorate is a chief concern for Obama, one he has begun going out of his way to address. Campaigning in Troy, Mich. today, he praised Clinton for running an "outstanding race," and said, "She and I will be working together in November." His comments, which were not part of his prepared text, seemed to be more inconclusive than his remarks in South Dakota on Sunday, when he said Clinton would be a "great asset when we go into November."

Clinton and her supporters, meanwhile, are sounding deeply conflicting notes about her intentions after polls close Tuesday night.

On one hand, her words and actions suggest her campaign is nearing its end: Her campaign machinery is reportedly preparing to gear down, and she will spend Tuesday night in her home state of New York; her comments toward Obama have softened; and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, was wistful on the stump yesterday in South Dakota.

"This may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind," he said. "I thought I was out of politics, 'til Hillary decided to run. But it has been, one of the greatest honors of my life to be able to go around and campaign for her for president."

At the same time, Clinton's campaign was boasting of her wide victory Sunday in Puerto Rico's primary and appealing to superdelegates as well. Also, top supporters such as Harold Ickes have continued to express outrage over the deal the Democratic Party worked out Saturday to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida, but with only half votes each. The agreement gave Clinton a net gain of 24 delegates, far less than her campaign wanted. Ickes said again on MSNBC today that Clinton reserves the right to appeal the decision to a committee of Democratic Party officials this summer, though it was unclear whether she would follow through on that threat if Obama clinches the nomination.

But even some of Clinton's leading supporters in the party -- including Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack -- have voiced resignation in recent days that Obama will be the nominee, and that it was time to unite behind him. Many of the remaining 65 or so undeclared Democratic senators and House members are reportedly preparing to endorse Obama Tuesday or Wednesday.

As of tonight, there were about 150 superdelegates who had yet to publicly commit to a candidate. In between appearances today, Obama was busy making personal appeals to them by phone.

"There are a lot of superdelegates who are waiting for the last couple of contests but I think that they are going to be making decisions fairly quickly after that," Obama told reporters today in Waterford, Mich. "We feel good about the number of superdelegates that we have been accumulating and my sense is that between Tuesday and Wednesday that we've got a good chance of getting the number that we need to win the nomination."