Clinton urges supporters to ignore dire predictions

About a third of the undeclared superdelegates are members of Congress. He picked up two more superdelegates Thursday.

"My main message is that whichever way you want to go, the sooner that superdelegates make their decision the sooner we will have a sense of who the nominee will be and sooner we can focus on John McCain," Obama told the Fox News Channel outside his Senate office.

The Associated Press has contacted nearly 100 undeclared superdelegates -out of roughly 260 -since the Tuesday elections and has found that many see Obama as the likely nominee, but are reluctant to make a public commitment until after the final states hold their votes June 3.

"There are no undecided superdelegates, there are really only undeclared superdelegates," uncommitted Democratic National Committee member Edward Espinoza of California said in an interview with AP Television. "And what many people have to deal with in this process is grappling professional and political interests when they make a declaration."

Obama has focused more intently on Republican John McCain in recent weeks.

On Thursday, he accused McCain in a CNN interview of "losing his bearings" for repeatedly suggesting the Islamic militant group Hamas preferred Obama for president.

That brought an angry response from McCain's campaign, which accused Obama of trying to make an issue of McCain's age. Age is a touchy subject for McCain, who turns 72 in August and would be the oldest person to be sworn in as president if elected.

Meanwhile, Clinton continued to press her case that she was the candidate most equipped to defeat McCain in November, though her new comments about race dogged her following an interview with USA Today published Thursday.

In it, Clinton cited an Associated Press article which found that "Senator Obama's support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.