Clinton shakes up campaign, reeling from losses

[Ron Burgundy]

AFP - Democrat Hillary Clinton has shaken up her campaign as she seeks to blunt a tide of support for rival Barack Obama who dealt her new blow in the tight White House race by winning Maine.

The upset in Maine came hot on the heels of a slew of defeats on Saturday, when Obama defeated Clinton in every state up for grabs, to take Washington state, Louisiana and Nebraska, as well as the US Virgin Islands.

Keen to stem the tide, the former first lady announced that her campaign manager was stepping aside to be replaced by a longtime Clinton insider, Maggie Williams.

But with three more states voting on Tuesday, it may be too little too late.

Clinton had been hoping to hold her own in Maine after winning neighboring New Hampshire. And before the vote, independent poll-tracker RealClearPolitics.com had given her a slim lead in the crucial delegate tally, with 1,123 to Obama's 1,120.

That lead appeared to collapse late Sunday, however, as the state's Democratic party director Arden Manning told AFP the projected delegate count was 15 for Obama to nine for Clinton.

Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe said in a statement late Sunday the 46-year-old Illinois senator still faced an uphill battle.

"The Clintons are far better known and have a political machine that's been honed over two decades," Plouffe said.

"But the more voters get to know Obama and his message of change, the more they support him, which bodes well for the upcoming primaries."

But Obama is tipped in the trio of votes on Tuesday in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC, dubbed the Potomac Primary for the river which snakes through all three.

Further down the line on March 4 Texas and Ohio, two delegate-rich states, will be held, where polls have shown Clinton may expect better support. Wisconsin also votes in the meantime, on February 19.

The campaign shuffle was another sign of vulnerability in the Clinton camp, after she was forced last week to draw five million dollars from her own pocket to shore up her campaign.

Clinton, 60, is on a historic quest to be the first woman in the Oval Office, but Obama, 46, is firing up voters as he bids to be the first black president.

Both candidates were out campaigning Sunday in Virginia, and its Potomac River neighbors.

"I have the ability to bring people together," Obama told a roaring crowd at a school gym in Alexandria, Virginia, an affluent suburb of Washington. "If you will vote for me on Tuesday ... we will transform this country."

Usually of little consequence in past primaries, the three Tuesday votes have become key pieces on the electoral chessboard since the deadlocked Super Tuesday contests.

Virginia is the biggest prize on Tuesday with 83 delegates, while Maryland has 70, and the US capital, a separate federal district, offers 15.

A candidate needs backing from a total of 2,025 delegates to be formally crowned the Democratic presidential nominee at the party's convention in August, and stand in the November elections.

On the Republican side, John McCain has yet to convince the party's core conservatives, as highlighted when he lost on Saturday in Kansas and Louisiana to Mike Huckabee.

Even though he is the most likely party nominee after main rival Mitt Romney quit the race last week, Baptist minister Huckabee has vowed to fight on despite having little chance of overcoming McCain's huge delegate lead.

"The fact they're blowing against me hardly motivates me to quit," he told reporters in Washington. "It motivates me to play harder."

Analysts say Huckabee's refusal to pull out of the race could deepen party divisions between conservatives and Republicans ready to back McCain.

A Vietnam war hero, McCain, 71, has some 724 delegates to 234 for Huckabee. A total of 1,191 are needed for the nomination.

President George W. Bush, who defeated McCain for the nomination in 2000, told Fox news on Sunday that he would help his one-time rival if he secures the nomination.

But he added, "I think that if John's the nominee, he has got some convincing to do to convince people that he is a solid conservative."

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080211/ts_afp/usvote [link]