Clinton's tactic now: Hold on and smile

SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's greatest gift may be her ability to remain upright and smiling as chaos and chagrin surround her.

On what probably was one of the toughest days of her campaign, with pundits and analysts of all stripes declaring her presidential candidacy finished, Clinton put on her battle face Wednesday and confronted what at times was a hostile crowd at a hastily arranged speech at Shepherd University.

Shepherdstown, a quaint and hippieish town on the Potomac River in the West Virginia Panhandle, is where Robert E. Lee led his Confederate Army in retreat after the battle of Antietam, the single bloodiest day of the Civil War.

Clinton endured boos when she mentioned her proposal for a gas-tax holiday, catcalls when she spoke of ending the Iraq war and, most difficult of all, the crowd's heckling of her daughter, Chelsea, who introduced her.

"End the dynasty!" a young man holding an Obama poster shouted when Chelsea Clinton stepped to the microphone.

All the while, a smile was fixed on Hillary Clinton's face, and she betrayed only an occasional glimmer of recognition of the exceedingly narrow straits she now must navigate.

At one point during her 19-minute remarks, Clinton promised that the United States would have universal health care "if I'm president," a deviation from her customary "when I'm president." She said she was proud of her two-point victory in Indiana on Tuesday, but made no mention of her 14-point loss in North Carolina. Nor did she speak the name of Sen. Barack Obama, or even refer to him as "my opponent," as she ordinarily does.

Her remarks on the steps of 19th-century McMurran Hall on the main street of town were an abridged cut-and-paste job of her standard stump speech. It was not her most fluid effort. While discussing incentives for education and public service, she took a sharp detour into trade policy and vowed to get tough with oil-producing nations before she circled back to preschool programs. But the modestly sized audience applauded at the appropriate times and, except for an unusually large and at times vocal contingent of Obama supporters, the appearance went off without incident.

Clinton added the stop at 3 a.m. Wednesday in an effort to show that she remained committed to campaigning in the remaining six contests on the Democratic primary calendar (West Virginia holds its primary Tuesday). She also may have been seeking refuge from the storm of speculation in Washington, D.C., over the fate of her campaign. She returned to the capital after the Shepherdstown event to try to persuade a small group of undecided superdelegates to remain uncommitted, and then to raise money for her near-broke campaign at a mother-daughter dinner at a hotel.

Clinton has said for months that she will not quit as long as there remains a mathematical possibility that she could capture the nomination. That chance narrowed considerably Tuesday night, but the path is not totally blocked.

At a brief news conference after her remarks at the college, she said, "It's a new day, it's a new state, it's a new election," her upbeat tone never wavering. "I'm staying in this race until there's a nominee. I'm going to work as hard as I can to become that nominee."

Jay Carson, a campaign spokesman, said he had spoken privately with Clinton on Wednesday morning and that she was in a good mood.

"We feel we did well last night," Carson said. "She is not someone who is buffeted by the day-to-day ups and downs of the campaign. She is tough and tenacious. That's why she's a phenomenal campaigner and why she'd be a great president."

As adamant as Clinton appeared Wednesday, some of her top fundraisers said the campaign was all but over and suggested that she simply was buying time to determine if she could raise enough money and still win over superdelegates.

Highlighting the financial woes of Clinton's expensive battle against Obama, campaign officials disclosed an additional $6.425 million in loans she made to her campaign since April 11. Clinton and her husband made a separate $5 million loan to the campaign after the Super Tuesday contests on Feb. 5.

Clinton is willing to put even more money into her campaign, said Terry McAuliffe, her campaign chairman. Other advisers said her campaign was nearly out of cash, raising questions about what kind of campaign she can continue to run. The campaign said, however, that it was running advertisements in West Virginia and in Oregon, which has its primary May 20.

Clinton advisers said they were concerned that her online fundraising, which boomed after her victory in the Ohio primary in March and in Pennsylvania in April, had slowed by comparison Tuesday night and Wednesday, and that her donor base was either tightening somewhat or playing wait-and-see. Clinton aides did not send out the near-hourly e-mail updates about online donations that came after previous successes.

Many of her supporters, meanwhile, sensed that Clinton's quest may be coming to a close.

Joanne Drewry, 47, a contractor in Shepherdstown, stood in the back of the crowd holding a pole with six Clinton posters stapled to it. She said she was disappointed in Tuesday's results and believed that it meant the end of Clinton's presidential ambitions, at least this year.

But she said she hoped that Obama would offer Clinton the vice-presidential nomination and that she would accept it.

"I'd like to see them join together," Drewry said. "They'd sweep the nation."