WASHINGTON, 15 May 2008 — Hillary Clinton won an overwhelming victory in Tuesday’s West Virginia primary that did little to cut into Barack Obama’s lead in the Democratic presidential race.

Clinton captured 67 percent of the vote and 20 of the state’s 28 pledged delegates.

Even though she trounced Obama in West Virginia primary, her negligible payback in convention delegates illustrates why her rival and her party are turning away from her candidacy to begin the fight against Republican John McCain.

Obama has scored a net gain of about three times as many superdelegates in the past two weeks, offsetting Clinton’s advantage in West Virginia Tuesday.

The Illinois senator has won endorsements from 42 Democratic superdelegates since the beginning of the month, 29 since last week when he won in North Carolina and narrowly lost Indiana.

By comparison, 10 superdelegates have declared for Clinton since the start of May. After starting the year with twice as many superdelegates as Obama, Clinton now trails the Illinois senator among the party officials and officeholders who get a vote at the national convention.

Obama has 286.5 superdelegates to Clinton’s 274.5, according to lists and public announcements from both campaigns.

Obama also picked up endorsements yesterday from three former chairmen of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, bolstering his economic credentials and bipartisan appeal as he closes in on his party’s nomination.

Former SEC head William Donaldson, who was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, joined Arthur Levitt and David Ruder in backing Obama.

Levitt was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, while Ruder was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, a Republican.

An unwelcome legacy of Clinton’s faltering campaign for president is a $21-million debt, half from her own pockets, and some political insiders think she may have to turn to her political nemesis to help resolve it.

Obama told reporters in Oregon recently that he intended to have “a broad-ranging discussion with Sen. Clinton about how I could make her feel good about the process and have her on the team.”

He has said he doubts Clinton is remaining in the race because of any financial incentive.

Obama is the unquestioned fund-raising leader of the 2008 campaign, having raised more than $240 million. At the end of March, he had $51 million in the bank. He cannot transfer money to Clinton, but he could request that his contributors donate to her to help pay her debts. Some Obama donors said they would consider helping.

“As much as I dislike how Hillary Clinton has run this campaign, I think it would be worth it to heal the wound,” said Los Angeles Democratic activist Richard Jacobs, an Obama backer. “If he says it is a good idea, I think a lot of people would feel the same way.”

But Clinton may be the least of Obama’s headaches. Persistent rumors against him have kept him on the defense. And, although he says he is well-prepared to battle false smears and Republican attacks on his religion and patriotism, various rumors have penetrated so deeply into the electorate that they present a general election challenge for him.

From state to state, voters who support him cite attacks against him that say he is a Muslim or that he won’t say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Obama, who is Christian and says the Pledge of Allegiance regularly, has tried to shrug off the false rumors with jokes, but he increasingly has been forced to quash them on the spot.

The Obama campaign has not done much to debunk the rumors. A Google search for the words “Obama” and “pledge” produced more than 400,000 hits, but his campaign has not purchased the relatively inexpensive sponsored Google links urging voters to get the truth.

Obama is also being attacked by the Republicans for not being “pro-Jewish” enough. House Minority Leader John Boehner and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor took “Obama’s words out of context for allegedly saying that Israel is a constant wound for US foreign policy.

The right-wing blogosphere is lending its voice to the chorus. But a fair-minded reading of Obama’s remarks show that his comment was taken out of context,” said yesterday’s Washington Post.

Five more Democratic primaries scheduled in the next few weeks: Next Tuesday (May 20) will be the Kentucky and Oregon primaries. June 1 will hold a primary in Puerto Rico, and on June 3, Montana and South Dakota will hold the last primaries.

Obama is currently leading Clinton by 55 percent to 35 percent in Oregon, but she holds a 58 percent to 31 percent lead in Kentucky and is ahead by 13 points in Puerto Rico, according to recent polls.

Gallup’s daily tracking poll of Democratic voters reported Tuesday that Obama led by 50 percent to 44 percent, while an ABC News/Washington Post poll showed him ahead by 53 percent to 41 percent.