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Clinton compares her campaign to JFK'sin 1960

BY GLENN THRUSH | glenn.thrush@newsday.com

May 13, 2008

CLEAR FORK, W.Va. - Hillary Rodham Clinton compared her underdog quest for the White House yesterday to John F. Kennedy's 1960 campaign - while her top strategist likened Barack Obama's sky-high confidence to George W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" declaration.

A Suffolk University poll yesterday showed the former first lady leading Barack Obama by 36 points ahead of today's West Virginia primary - which would be her biggest victory margin of the campaign. But analysts say a win tonight is likely to do little to erode Obama's lead in delegates, or stem the steady trickle of undecided superdelegates to the Illinois senator - 26 in the last week alone.

Clinton swatted aside suggestions she would drop out before the final ballots are cast in early June, reveling in chants of "Don't quit!" from enthusiastic and virtually all-white crowds in West Virginia coal country.

"Democrats don't get elected president unless West Virginia votes for you," said Clinton, 60, whose motorcade crept through fog-shrouded mountain switchbacks in a soaking rain to reach this mining town.

"It was West Virginia that made it possible for John Kennedy to become president," Clinton told 400 supporters at a local high school. "John Kennedy didn't have the number of delegates he needed when he went to the convention in 1960; he had something equally as important - he had West Virginia behind him."

Obama has spent much of his time in recent days studiously ignoring Clinton and focusing on John McCain and the vote in November. He made a rare stop in West Virginia yesterday, telling supporters in Charleston, "I understand that many more here in West Virginia will probably support Senator Clinton."

Later, Clinton's top strategist, Geoff Garin, told MSNBC that the campaign would continue to push forward despite calls for her to forgo the final three weeks and the campaign's admission Sunday that it is at least $20 million in debt.

"We've already had one unfortunate experience with a leader declaring 'mission accomplished' when it really wasn't," Garin said, referring to the now infamous sign that greeted Bush aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln following the fall of Baghdad in 2003.

Garin's admonition did nothing to halt the steady drip-drip-drip of superdelegates to Obama, with four more announcing they were endorsing him yesterday. Clinton's once-commanding lead among supers has evaporated, with Obama now leading by 281 to 271.5, according to an Associated Press tally.

Obama, who is now about 150 overall delegates short of the 2,025 needed for the nomination under party rules, could hit that mark before the end of the primary season June 3 if the superdelegate trend continues.

Still, like a football player seeking refuge between the white lines, Clinton seems to be having more fun these days than during more measured, sedate and pressure-packed appearances as the front-runner. And the working-class crowds in the mill and mining towns were genuinely delighted by her decision to adopt them as her own - and with her unrestrained attacks on oil companies, Chinese toy manufacturers and Wall Street money.

"It's good to hear her talk about gas prices. They're killing us," said Donna Madden, 45, a part-time high school cafeteria employee from Clear Fork. "She's an American, a real American. It's just good to know that she has the same ancestors as us, that her family goes back for generations and generations and generations."