US:AS OREGON and Kentucky vote in Democratic primaries today, Hillary Clinton has warned Barack Obama against declaring victory in the presidential nomination race too soon, writes Denis Stauntonin Washington.
Mr Obama expects to win enough delegates today to give him a majority of elected delegates but he needs the support of more party leaders, known as superdelegates, to reach the 2,025 needed to win the nomination.
Campaigning in Kentucky yesterday, Mrs Clinton claimed that she had won more popular votes than Mr Obama and that she had won states with more electoral college votes - 300 to Mr Obama's 217.
"So I'm going to make my case and I'm going to make it until we have a nominee, but we're not going to have one today and we're not going to have one tomorrow and we're not going to have one the next day.
"And if Kentucky turns out tomorrow, I will be closer to that nomination because of you," she said.
A new Suffolk University poll puts Mrs Clinton 25 points ahead in Kentucky, although it shows Mr Obama leading her in Oregon by four points.
Mr Obama drew his biggest crowd yet on Sunday when 70,000 people came to see him in Portland, Oregon, and he won an important endorsement yesterday from Robert Byrd (90), the longest-serving member of the US Senate.
Mr Byrd's endorsement came despite last week's primary in his home state of West Virginia, which Mrs Clinton won by a margin of more than two to one.
A senator since 1959, Mr Byrd was a member of the Ku Klux Klan during the 1940s but has publicly apologised for his links to the group.
"I believe that Barack Obama is a shining young statesman, who possesses the personal temperament and courage necessary to extricate our country from this costly misadventure in Iraq and to lead our nation at this challenging time in history," Mr Byrd said.
"Barack Obama is a noble-hearted patriot and humble Christian, and he has my full faith and support."
Mr Obama's unofficial status as the presumptive Democratic nominee is reflected in the fact that Republican John McCain is directing his attacks almost exclusively at the Illinois senator rather than Mrs Clinton.
Mr McCain yesterday seized on Mr Obama's suggestion that the threat to the US from Iran is "tiny" compared to that represented by the Soviet Union during the cold war.
"The biggest national security challenge the United States currently faces is keeping nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists. Should Iran acquire nuclear weapons, that danger would become very dire indeed. They might not be a superpower, but the threat the government of Iran poses is anything but 'tiny'," Mr McCain said.
"Senator Obama has declared, and repeatedly reaffirmed, his intention to meet the president of Iran without any preconditions, likening it to meetings between former American presidents and the leaders of the Soviet Union.
"Such a statement betrays the depth of Senator Obama's inexperience and reckless judgment. Those are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess."