WRAPUP 2-Obama in West Virginia with eye on McCain

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By Deborah Charles

CHARLESTON, W.Va., May 12 (Reuters) - Democratic front-runner Barack Obama made a quick stop in West Virginia on Monday ahead of an expected bad loss there to White House rival Hillary Clinton, but he was already looking past the contest to November's fight with Republican John McCain.

During a six-hour West Virginia trip, Obama criticized McCain's refusal to back a Democratic bill expanding education benefits for military veterans and announced he would visit the November swing states of Missouri, Florida and Michigan in the next week as he prepares for the general election.

"There is an election here tomorrow. I am extraordinarily honored that some of you will support me," Obama told a rally in Charleston. "I understand that many more here in West Virginia will probably support Senator Clinton."

Obama wore an American flag lapel pin in Charleston as he discussed ways to strengthen the military. The Illinois senator has been criticized at times for not wearing the pin, seen by some politicians as a symbol of patriotism.

Clinton, a New York senator who has vowed to keep fighting despite dwindling prospects and a mounting campaign debt, also campaigned in West Virginia and showed no signs she was ready to call it quits.

"I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe that I could be the best president for West Virginia and America, and that I was the stronger candidate to take on John McCain in the fall," Clinton told a rally in Logan, West Virginia.

Obama has a big lead on Clinton in their duel for the Democratic presidential nomination but appears headed to a bad defeat in West Virginia, a state with a heavy concentration of white working-class voters who have backed Clinton.