Barack Obama closed in on the Democratic presidential nomination Wednesday, as Hillary Clinton refused to abandon her fading White House hopes after pumping 6.4 million dollars into her campaign.
After trouncing the former first lady in Tuesday's North Carolina primary and pushing her to a nail-biting finish in Indiana, Obama appeared to be firmly on track to be crowned the party's nominee for the November election.
Analysts predicted Clinton would now be under enormous pressure to pull out of the race and help heal party divisions to present a united front against the Republicans and their candidate John McCain.
"Toast," trumpeted the New York Post banner headline over a picture of the New York senator, saying she had blown her last shot in Indiana in the marathon nomination battle.
Obama bounced back from weeks of mis-steps and the controversy over his former pastor that had threatened to derail his bid to become the first black US president by thrashing Clinton 56-42 percent in North Carolina late Tuesday.
The former first lady then took Indiana by 51-49 percent, but only after an agonizingly slow vote count that saw her commanding early lead whittled down to a mere 18,400 votes.
In a further sign that she is floundering, her aides admitted that New York Senator Clinton lent her campaign 6.4 million dollars over the last month from her own pocket.
She loaned her effort five million dollars on April 11, some 11 days before her win in Pennsylvania gave her campaign a new lease on life and unlocked a new spurt of fundraising.
The former first lady then funnelled another one million dollars into the campaign account on May 1, followed by 425,000 dollars more on Monday, the aides said.
But with Obama only 183 delegates shy of the 2,025 needed for the party's nomination, Clinton, on her own quest to be the first woman in the Oval Office, appeared virtually out of options with only six contests remaining to June 3.
"We now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and no one is going to dispute it," said NBC channel's commentator Tim Russert.
And other commentators said the party's remaining undeclared superdelegates, who can vote for the candidate of their choice, would soon start flocking to Obama's side having held off awaiting Tuesday's results.
"More superdelegates will come out today for Barack Obama. They will come three, four, five at a time, and this nomination will be locked up," said ABC commentator George Stephanopoulos.
Clinton aides fiercely rejected calls for her to quit the race though, saying she would continue to press her case that she would be the best nominee to take on Republican John McCain in November.
"The reality is that many pundits have counted Senator Clinton out many times in this contest," said Howard Wolfson, her communications director.
"Many of them are doing it again today. The punditocracy does not control this contest, voters do."
Aides said Clinton had hastily scheduled a campaign appearance in West Virginia, which votes May 13, in the early hours of Wednesday to make the point that she would fight on. And she vowed late Tuesday that "it's full speed on to the White House."
But Obama is already casting himself as the Democrats' heir-apparent.
"Tonight we stand less than 200 delegates away from securing the Democratic nomination for president of the United States," he told cheering supporters in his victory speech in Raleigh, North Carolina.
"This fall, we intend to march forward as one Democratic Party, united by a common vision for this country," he said.
Only six primaries, with a total of 217 delegates at stake, remain: West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana and South Dakota, and the US territory of Puerto Rico.
Obama still has to convince Democratic party leaders of his electability in any match-up with McCain as exit polls Tuesday showed he had won massive black support, but barely a third of the white vote in North Carolina.
He scored well, however, with voters in terms of his identifying with their values, suggesting he had deflected Clinton's accusation that he is an "elitist" out of touch with blue-collar voters.
After returning to Washington later Wednesday, Clinton was due to have a meeting with superdelegates on Capitol Hill, but aides rejected the notion that it was a crisis meeting after Tuesday's results.
