FOX-While Hillary Clinton vowed to continue her fight “until there’s a nominee,” a general consensus was growing among Democrats Wednesday that the contest to become the party’s presidential candidate had already been decided beyond a reasonable doubt.

As the New York senator campaigned in West Virginia ahead of next Tuesday’s primary, Barack Obama’s campaign worked to finish off Clinton and began to focus on a general election battle against John McCain.

At least four new Democratic superdelegates shifted toward Obama on Wednesday, convinced by his double-digit victory in North Carolina and better-than-expected showing in Indiana that he will be the candidate who takes on McCain in November.

Among the newly added supporters was Virginia’s Jennifer McClellan, who used to support Clinton, as well as North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Meek, North Carolina Democratic National Committee member Jeanette Council and California DNC member Inola Henry.

Earlier in the day, 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern, who formerly backed Clinton, gave his blessing to Obama, saying he didn’t see how Clinton could win.

Obama has 1,840 delegates to 1,688 for Clinton in The Associated Press tally. It takes 2,025 delegates to win the nomination in Denver this summer.

With those numbers in place, and just six contests remaining, Obama’s aides and supporters were sending signals to Clinton that the game was over.

“It’s effectively a Barack Obama nomination,” said Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy. “I don’t see any possibility of altering or changing that inevitable fact … I respect her decision, but it doesn’t take away from the obvious, an increasingly obvious, fact that this nomination belongs to Barack Obama now.”

“She’s got to decide what she’s got to do, and barring something I’m not aware of, this looks like it’s headed to a Barack nomination,” Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd said. “I think at some point you have to start asking yourself, ‘What’s the purpose here?’”

Both Kennedy and Dodd have endorsed Obama.

Clinton faced added pressure from the media. The New York Post declared that she was was “TOAST!” on its front page Wednesday, and The Drudge Report Web site ran a photo of Obama with the caption, “The Nominee.”

Even one of Clinton’s high-powered Senate supporters was questioning her game plan.

“The question comes, ‘How do you get to 2,025 delegates?’ And I want to talk to Senator Clinton. I’d like to know what her strategy is,” said California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

“She’s my friend. And I’m loyal. On the other hand, I don’t want to rip the party asunder.”

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said the Illinois senator netted 13 delegates from Tuesday’s contests in North Carolina and Indiana — meaning Obama erased Clinton’s 12-delegate gain from the Pennsylvania primary two weeks earlier — and Obama’s pledged delegate lead had now achieved “a high water mark.”

Seeing the end in sight, Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod appeared to be shifting the campaign toward a general election fight, saying McCain has “run free for some time now” because of Democratic preoccupation with the primary fight.

“I don’t think we’re going to spend time solely in primary states,” Axelrod said. “We have multiple tasks here.”

But Clinton was looking ahead to the final six contests, continuing to court superdelegates and make the case that she will be more electable against McCain.

She’s also sticking with her fight to count Michigan’s and Florida’s delegations, which were stripped because the states held primaries in violation of national party rules. Clinton won both states, though neither candidate campaigned in Florida and Obama wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan.

“It is a new day. It is a new state. It is a new election,” Clinton said in Shepherdstown, W.Va.

West Virginia votes Tuesday, followed by Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota. With its large white, rural and blue-collar populations, West Virginia is probably Clinton-friendly territory. But it offers only 28 delegates and is unlikely to make more than a ding in the dynamic of the race.

“I’m staying in this race until there’s a nominee, and I obviously am going to work as hard as I can to become that nominee,” Clinton said. “I believe that I’m the stronger candidate against Senator McCain and I believe I would be the best president among the three of us running, and we will continue to contest these elections and move forward.”

The former first lady declined to say whether that meant through the roll call of the states at the Democratic National Convention in August.

Clinton also disclosed that she had lent her campaign an additional $6.4 million in recent weeks, evidence that her once front-runner campaign was in deep trouble.

She told reporters the loans were a sign of her commitment to her quest for the White House. She earlier had lent herself $5 million as she struggled to keep up with a better-financed Obama campaign.

Clinton met with undecided superdelegates at Democratic Party headquarters Wednesday. She said, “We talked a lot about Florida and Michigan … I continue to emphasize and stress that we cannot disenfranchise those voters.”

Clinton picked up two superdelegates earlier in the day.

Obama’s campaign dropped broad hints it was time for the 270 remaining unaligned superdelegates to get off the fence and settle the nomination. In a memorandum to superdelegates, Plouffe reminded them of the delegate math necessary to secure the nomination. He said Clinton would need to win 68 percent of the remaining delegates to win — an extremely unlikely scenario, made harder by her poor performance Tuesday.

“With the Clinton path to the nomination getting even narrower, we expect new and wildly creative scenarios to emerge in the coming days,” Plouffe wrote.

“While those scenarios may be entertaining, they are not legitimate and will not be considered legitimate by this campaign or millions of supporters, volunteers and donors.”

Obama was to make his pitch to the congressional fence sitters in meetings Thursday. He also planned to start traveling to swing states to signal that the general election has begun.

TH-Hillary Rodham Clinton says she will remain in the presidential race “until there’s a nominee.” The former first lady declined to say whether that meant through the roll call of the states at the Democratic National Convention this summer.

Clinton also disclosed that she had loaned her campaign an additional $6.4 million in recent weeks, additional evidence that her once front-runner campaign was in deep trouble.

She told reporters the loans were a sign of her commitment to her quest for the White House. She earlier loaned herself $5 million as she struggled to keep up with a better-financed Obama campaign.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama pocketed the support of at least four Democratic convention superdelegates on Wednesday, building on the momentum from a convincing North Carolina primary victory.

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Do you like Rush when he is real high?

On cult members like you!

So you are flip-flopping…he does have influence!

He does have influence on blind cult members like you!

On February 8th John Konop in reply to this question: “John, Why are you so jealous of Rush’s success and influence?”, John Konop wrote:

“What influence”

You stand corrected.

More rough news for Sen. Hillary Clinton. The Hill reports that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), one of Clinton’s “most prominent Senate supporters, said Wednesday that she has asked the former first lady to detail her plans for the rest of the Democratic primary.”

“I, as you know, have great fondness and great respect for Sen. Clinton and I’m very loyal to her,” Feinstein said. “Having said that, I’d like to talk with her and [get] her view on the rest of the race and what the strategy is.”

Clinton, who eked out a win in Indiana Tuesday night but lost big to front-runner Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in North Carolina, has not responded to Feinstein’s phone call, the California senator said.

“I think the race is reaching the point now where there are negative dividends from it, in terms of strife within the party,” Feinstein said. “I think we need to prevent that as much as we can.”

Tuesday night’s results are widely viewed as a blow to Clinton’s hopes after she failed to deliver a “game-changing” performance. Instead, Obama extended his leads among delegates and popular votes.

Feinstein stressed that Clinton is not an “also-run candidate,” but added that there is a question “as to whether she can get the delegates that she needs. I’d like to see what the strategy is and then we can talk further.”

POLITICO-Rush Limbaugh, between crowing about the success and attention of his “Operation Chaos,” switched sides in the Democratic primary this morning.

“I now urge the Democratic superdelegates to go publicly make your mind up for Obama,” he said.

Earlier, he said, “I’m now tempted to tell superdelegates to pick Obama because I now believe he would be the weakest nominee.”

Limbaugh had been urging his listeners to support Hillary as the only chance for Republican victory in November, and to extend the Democratic primary. Exit polls and anecdotes suggest that many did.

Not sure there are really a lot of dittoheads among the superdelegates, however.

Also, he took an obligatory shot at McGovern, who just called on Clinton to drop out.

“Mcgovern in his lifetime wants to see someone lose worse than he did,” he said.

A senior campaign official and Clinton confidante has told me that there will be a Democratic nominee by June 15. He could not bring himself to say the words “Hillary will drop out by June 15,” but that is clearly what he meant. I kept saying, “So, Hillary will drop out by June 15,” and he kept saying, “We will have a nominee by June 15.” He stressed what a reasonable person Hillary is.

Everything about our conversation implied that he had already had this reality-based discussion with Hillary. He said the Clinton campaign plan is to collect as many votes and delegates as they can right through June 3, then take no more than a week or so to make their case to the superdelegates. Nothing he said indicated that he actually expected the superdelegates to move to Hillary in the week after the final election. The Clinton campaign has not lost its grip on reality. Yes, Clinton spokespersons publicly seem to be lost on gravity-free planet Clinton, but privately they know the end is near.