WASHINGTON, MAY 10:Barack Obama focused his campaign message against likely Republican nominee John McCain amid mounting signs that the historic months-long battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination was coming to a close.

Obama has almost tied Clinton in the crucial superdelegate count that she once dominated, a sign that her financially strapped campaign with its dwindling support is nearly over.

Obama’s quiet, and increasing, confidence that the nomination is his was evident in his campaigning Friday in Oregon, where he aimed his criticism at McCain and largely ignored his Democratic rival. He planned to continue campaigning in the state on Saturday.

“I’m gratified that we’ve got some superdelegates who are coming our way. And I think we’ve got a strong case to make that I will be a nominee that can pull the party together and take on John McCain,” Obama told reporters in Woodburn, Oregon.

After a sometimes bitter and acrimonious campaign, the Democratic race entered its final weeks, with electoral math the deciding factor. Clinton, unlikely to be able to erase Obama’s 1,859.5 to 1,698 lead in delegates, needs massive support from those superdelegates — party leaders free to vote as they chose — who have yet to declare their preference.

With Obama also unable to reach the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination based solely on elected delegates, that same group offered the key to his securing the party’s stamp. The support of nine superdelegates Friday were the latest in a steady trickle since he crushed Clinton in North Carolina and narrowly lost Indiana on Tuesday. Clinton gained two superdelegates Friday.

The 46-year-old Illinois senator, who would be the U.S.’s first black president, said the presumptive Republican nominee would continue failed Bush administration priorities. He pointedly criticised McCain’s economic, health and Iraq policies, but steered clear of criticising Clinton, continuing a strategy of avoiding antagonising her or her supporters.

The push was calculated, and evidenced in his gentle efforts to nudge uncommitted superdelegates — about 250 out of the nearly 800 total — to his camp.

Four months ago, on the eve of the primary season, Clinton held a lead of 169-63. Now she has 272.5 superdelegates, to 271 for Obama.

Clinton, who would be the nation’s first female president, campaigning in the Portland, Oregon, area, focused instead on the only real chance she had left to extend the life of her once-powerful candidacy: somehow derailing Obama. For that, she turned to the issues. At a round table at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, she criticised Obama’s health care plan for promising universal coverage to children but not adults.

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