For once, Oregon primary may be extremely relevant

PORTLAND — The Oregon presidential primary, an irrelevancy for so many years, may now be the last contest that means anything in the long and increasingly bitter race between Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

With Obama decisively winning North Carolina on Tuesday while Clinton narrowly won Indiana, Oregon is the last contest on the dwindling primary calendar that could have a major influence on the superdelegates who will decide the nomination.

Alone among the five states and one territory left to vote, Oregon is close enough to be competitive while also being a state that Democrats need to win in the fall.

"Both campaigns are going to be focused on Oregon," said Trent Lutz, executive director of the Oregon Democratic Party. "There's talk that it's going to be the last battleground state."

Clinton and Obama have both poured staff and money into the state, opening offices in such cities as Pendleton and McMinnville. Clinton will make her second campaign swing through Oregon starting today, and Obama aides said their candidate will campaign again here before the May 20 deadline for returning ballots.

Obama has routinely led in polls — the last two showed him somewhere between 6 and 12 points ahead of Clinton — but both campaigns see a lot to be gained or lost in Oregon.

Obama needs a win in Oregon to demonstrate to the superdelegates that he has not been seriously damaged by controversy over remarks by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, said Ronald Tammen of Portland State University.

And Clinton needs to show that her recent string of victories in such industrial states as Ohio and Pennsylvania can be translated into a win in a West Coast state that leans towardObama.

Portland pollster Bob Moore, a Republican, said Oregon should be fertile ground for Obama, with its large number of young, college-educated Democrats. But Clinton can have a chance to win the state if she does well among blue-collar men and among women of all ages, he said.