WRAPUP 5-Obama camp sees victory over Clinton soon

(Adds Edwards quote, paragraphs 7-8)

By Alan Elsner

WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama's campaign chief predicted on Sunday his long battle against Hillary Clinton for the party's presidential nomination would soon be over, saying "we're coming to the end of the process."

Interviewed on "Fox News Sunday," David Axelrod said undecided superdelegates to the party convention who will decide the nomination were opting for Obama, the Illinois senator who would be the first black U.S. president if elected in November.

"You're going to see people (superdelegates) making decisions at a rapid pace from this point on," Axelrod said. "We've been announcing several each day for the last few days. We're going to continue to unfurl these endorsements on a regular basis."

Clinton's senior adviser Howard Wolfson, appearing on the same program, rejected the idea that the campaign was over and predicted victory in the next state primary in West Virginia on Tuesday.

"If Barack Obama wants Hillary Clinton out of this race, beat her. Beat her in West Virginia, beat her in Puerto Rico, beat her in Kentucky," he said, referring to three of the final six contests for the nomination, all of which favor Clinton.

But he said if Obama, 46, won the nomination, the New York senator would throw all her support and resources behind him against Republican nominee John McCain.

Axelrod's assessment was shared by former Democratic hopeful John Edwards who has not endorsed either candidate. Interviewed on the CBS program "Face the Nation," Edwards said Clinton had improved as a candidate recently but it probably came too late.

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, said of Clinton: "She's been making a pretty compelling case for her candidacy. The problem is, I think, you can no longer make a compelling case for the math. The math is very, very hard for her."

Clinton, the former first lady, spent Mother's Day campaigning in West Virginia, calling for more progress toward full equality for women.

"Hard work and resiliency are encoded in our genes," she said, picking up on two qualities she herself has won praise for during the exhausting presidential campaign.

Obama spent the day resting in Chicago. Since decisively winning the North Carolina primary last week, he has increasingly looked ahead to his coming battle with McCain, testing themes he hopes to use in the campaign.

LINK TO BUSH

In an interview with CNN last week that was aired on Sunday, he made it clear he would seek to link McCain to unpopular fellow Republican President George W. Bush.

"Think about what I am going to be running against, the failed policies of the Bush administration which John McCain wants to continue." Obama said.