I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA Today. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson writes:

As a statement of fact, that's debatable at best. As a rationale for why Democratic Party superdelegates should pick her over Obama, it's a slap in the face to the party's most loyal constituency -- African Americans -- and a repudiation of principles the party claims to stand for. Here's what she's really saying to party leaders: There's no way that white people are going to vote for the black guy. Come November, you'll be sorry.

Democrats will certainly struggle to win without a substantial minority of white voters, but there's no question that they can't win without us.

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This has been one of the longest, most closely fought contests in history. And that's partly because we have such a formidable opponent in Senator Hillary Clinton. Tonight, many of the pundits have suggested that this party is inalterably divided - that Senator Clinton's supporters will not support me, and that my supporters will not support her.

Well I'm here tonight to tell you that I don't believe it. Yes, there have been bruised feelings on both sides. Yes, each side desperately wants their candidate to win. But ultimately, this race is not about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or John McCain. This election is about you - the American people - and whether we will have a president and a party that can lead us toward a brighter future.

Now it is on to West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, and the other states where people are eager to have their voices heard. ...

And I am running to be the President of all of America - north, south, east and west, and everywhere in between. That's why it is so important that we count the votes of Florida and Michigan.

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The tightening Democratic race reflects a modest but consistent decline in Obama's personal image rather than improved impressions of Clinton. Fewer Democrats ascribe positive qualities to Obama than did so a month ago, with white working-class Democrats, in particular, expressing more skeptical views of the Illinois senator.

The bigger problem appears to be Obama's string of losses to Clinton in big states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. Those losses have not driven up Clinton's support. But they may have created doubts about Obama's ability to win.

In Pa. 92% of all black voters voted for Obama. That's powerful! Only one problem....not enough registered black voters actually voted!!!!

Indeed, some locals are pointing to the way Obama conducted his campaign in Pennsylvania as an object lesson. At one point, the Illinois Senator was asked about his lack of activity in Philadelphia's black neighborhoods and told the Philadelphia Daily News, "I'm a big believer in going to places where you're weak, not where you're strong, and reaching out to people you might not otherwise expect to vote for you." Days later, after Obama failed to carry Philadelphia by a large enough margin to compensate for losses elsewhere in the state, the newspaper ran a story with the headline, "Did Obama blow the election by blowing off Philly?"

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I think that the sequence of events was the right one, because this is somebody who had married Michelle and I; who had baptized our children. When those first snippets came out, I thought it was important to give him the benefit of the doubt. If I had wanted to be politically expedient, I would have distanced myself and denounced him right away. Right? That would have been the easy thing to do.

We hear time and time again that voters are tired of this. They don't want to hear about this division. They want to know what are we going to do to move beyond these issues. What made me so proud of Barack in this situation is that he is trying to move us as a nation beyond these conversations that divide us so deeply.

You're running for president and people want to get a sense of who you are, and when you're new to the public stage you're a little more susceptible to having the canvas painted in by your political opponents.

As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. ...I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.

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But seriously, Obama says Wright has showed little consideration for him and his run for the presidency and it looked like he just wanted to take center stage. Obama also said that he cannot prevent Wright from speaking. True, and True.

"When I say I find these comments appalling I mean it. It contradicts what I'm about and who I am ... it is completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country."

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Why am I speaking out now? In our community, we have something called playing the dozens. If you think I'm going to let you talk about my mama and her religious tradition, and my daddy and his religious tradition, and my grandma, you've got another thing coming.

The fact that he is my former pastor I think makes it a legitimate political issue. So I understand that.

Well, let me try to respond in a non-bombastic way. If you heard the whole sermon, first of all, you heard that I was quoting the ambassador from Iraq. That's number one.

But, number two, to quote the Bible, "Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever you sow, that you also shall reap." Jesus said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic, divisive principles.

God doesn't bless everything. God condemns something -- and d-e-m-n, "demn," is where we get the word "damn." God damns some practices.

I think certainly what the last three days indicate is that we're not coordinating with him, right? He's obviously free to speak his mind, but I just want to emphasize that this is my former pastor. Many of the statements that he has made both to trigger this initial controversy and that he's made over the last several days are not statements that I've heard him make previously. They don't represent my views and they don't represent what this campaign is about.

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Contrary to any media reports, the 'Extreme' ad will run as scheduled next week. There has never been any intention to pull the ad and it will air. ...

People here in North Carolina should know that this ad is focused on Democrats Richard Moore and Beverly Perdue. By endorsing Barack Obama, they allied themselves with the most liberal person in the United States Senate. He is a candidate out of touch with the voters of North Carolina who does not share the values of North Carolinians. By refusing to stand up and rightfully denounce the statements made by his controversial former associates, Perdue and Moore are giving us the impression that they share these extreme views. The voters of North Carolina should be allowed to ask a legitimate question of candidates in North Carolina. ...

In Louisiana, a TV ad attacking Obama's healthcare agenda as "radical" proved so threatening that the House candidate it targeted, Democrat Don Cazayoux, distanced himself from Obama on Thursday, issuing a stern statement saying that he "has not endorsed any national politician."

The flurry of attacks underscores how Republicans and their allies are sensing opportunity in the increasingly battered image of Obama, whom many Democrats have viewed as their best hope for appealing across ideological lines and helping their party win in conservative areas.

I felt it was unfair. I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt for those who were doing that, were doing it for some very devious reasons.

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Well, Senator Obama is obviously ahead at this point, but he is not likely to get to the magic number of 2,025 without super-delegates. So we have to watch to see where this campaign goes.

Obviously, Senator Clinton is beginning to build some momentum, now, having done well in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

So we look to North Carolina and to Indiana to see whether one candidate or the other can, if you will, win on the other person's court.

So we look to see whether Senator Obama can hold North Carolina or whether Senator Clinton can make a tremendous showing there. And we look to Indiana to see whether Senator Obama can prevail in Indiana to demonstrate that he can do well in a Rust Belt state.

So the campaign continues, and I think we're learning as the process goes.

I think the most important thing here is that we settle upon a nominee by the end of June. I think that, while the campaign gets a little out of control at times, on balance, this has been good for the party.

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It's a long road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and it runs right through the heart of Pennsylvania.

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We're trying to figure out what our schedule looks like. But I'll be honest with you. We've now had 21, and look, in the previous three, you know, we did very well and so it's not as if we don't know how to do these things. I could deliver Senator Clinton's lines. I'm sure she could deliver mine.

Would someone please get the networks out of the presidential debate business?

The networks and the national press love their gotchas, their -gates, their "controversies," their heat. They, alas, are not the grownups in the political process. The grownups are the voters, who -- lamely, in the mind of the political class -- are troubled by the war, the economy and boring stuff like that. Stuff that networks think make for lousy television.

I don't blame news producers for doing what they think their job is, which is scoring brag-worthy Nielsens. I don't blame political talking heads for being infatuated with the narratives that they themselves create and market. Blaming them would be like blaming babies for banging their spoons on their highchairs, or addicts for wanting their fix.

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What better place to make history than Philadelphia. What time is it? Obama time. Let's get ready to rumble.

And I hope that I have demonstrated not just over the last weeks or even over the last hour and half but over a lifetime that you can count on me. You know where I stand. You know that I will fight for you and that together we're going to take back our country.

And so my point to the superdelegates would be that if we're going to deliver on health care for every American, improve our schools, deliver on jobs, then it's going to be absolutely vital we form a new political coalition in this country. That's what we've been doing in this campaign, and that's what I'm going to do when I'm president of the United States of America.

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What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called 'Jerry Smith' and he says I'm going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote? And the answer is, probably not....

Geraldine Ferraro said it right. The problem is, Geraldine Ferraro is white. This campaign has such a hair-trigger on anything racial ... it is almost impossible for anybody to say anything.

I don't think he has that common -- what I call "I-want-to-go-out-and-have-a-drink-with-you - touch."

It's very important 40 years after passage of the Voting Rights Act and 88 years after women gained the right to vote, the oldest political party in the United States is about to nominate the first woman or first minority.

Every four years we have these Harvard-educated or Yale-educated, I-know-everything- about-policy but they don't know how to relate to ordinary voters. They lack that common touch.

Obama is leading in pledged delegates, leading in popular vote, and has raised a lot of money. He's already captured the white vote, white people and white money. He was trying to let the folks in San Francisco know that these people are not voting against him because he's black.

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As I said yesterday, I regret some of the words I chose, partly because the way that these remarks have been interpreted have offended some people and partly because they have served as one more distraction from the critical debate that we must have in this election season.

Now, Senator McCain and the Republicans in Washington are already looking ahead to the fall and have decided that they plan on using these comments to argue that I'm out of touch with what's going on in the lives of working Americans. I don't blame them for this -- that's the nature of our political culture, and if I had to carry the banner for eight years of George Bush's failures, I'd be looking for something else to talk about too.

Maybe I'm a contrarian but I actually think this has been good for the party because each state we've participated in, we've seen record registration, record turnout and people are engaged. That doesn't mean that I expect that I'll win all 50 states. What it does mean is that we're building a structure. That people are being trained as leaders and organizers in those states and it will serve Democrats well in November.

I'm absolutely confident th