Clinton to Obama: Not so fast

By Ellen Wulfhorst

MAYSVILLE, Kentucky (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton had a warning on Monday for rival Barack Obama, who is on the verge of claiming the U.S. Democratic presidential nomination: Not so fast.

"This is nowhere near over," Clinton said at a rally in Maysville, Kentucky, pressing ahead with her long shot bid for the White House even as Obama focuses on November's general election match-up with Republican John McCain.

Despite Obama's almost unassailable lead in delegates who will select the nominee at the August Democratic convention, Clinton repeatedly has shrugged off calls to quit the race before the last of the voting concludes on June 3.

She warned the Illinois senator against premature victory celebrations one day before Kentucky and Oregon cast ballots in the lengthy Democratic White House fight.

"None of us is going to have the number of delegates we're going to need to get to the nomination, although I understand my opponent and his supporters are going to claim that," Clinton, a New York senator, said in Maysville.

Obama expects to claim a majority of pledged delegates won in state-by-state races after Tuesday's returns, but he will still be about 75 short of the 2,026 needed to clinch the nomination without further help from superdelegates -- party officials who are free to back any candidate.

Obama contends the remaining undecided superdelegates, who have been trending his way heavily in recent weeks, should back him since he won the most delegates in state voting.

Clinton says superdelegates should consider her argument that she will make a stronger general election foe for McCain, and her victories in big states like Pennsylvania and Ohio give her a better base than Obama has managed.

Obama will mark Tuesday's voting with a rally in Iowa, a general election battleground where he made his breakthrough with a big win in the first Democratic contest on January 3. He told reporters in Oregon on Sunday, however, that he did not plan to declare victory on Tuesday.

NO VICTORY DECLARATION

"It doesn't mean we declare victory because I won't be the nominee until we have enough -- combination of pledged delegates and super delegates to hit the mark," Obama said.

Obama continued to focus on the general election fight with McCain, stepping up attacks on the influence of lobbyists in the Arizona senator's campaign.

"John McCain's campaign is being run by Washington lobbyists and paid for with their money," Obama said in Billings, Montana, a state with a June 3 primary.

McCain's national finance co-chairman, former Texas Rep. Thomas Loeffler, quit on Sunday because of his lobbying ties, becoming the fifth person to leave his campaign because of links to lobbying. McCain's campaign manager last week asked staff to either resign or cut their ties with lobbying groups.

McCain strategist Charles Black, criticized by Democrats for his own lobbying activities, told reporters he had retired from his lobbying firm and he believed the McCain campaign had resolved the issue.