Washington: Democratic front runner Barack Obama is picking up superdelegates one by one but his standing at the national polls has taken a sharp hit and the gap between him and rival Hillary Clinton is shrinking in the states heading for primaries on May six.

Sen. Obama yesterday picked up one more former Democratic National Chair and super delegate from Massachusetts Paul Kirk, who threw his weight behind the Illinois Senator to bring total number of his super delegates to 253 and his overall margin to securing the nomination to less than 300.

Only the day before another former Chair of the DNC Joe Andrew dumped Senator Clinton and went on to Senator Obama's side. He urged others to do the same and close the delegate gap so Democrats can unify in time for the fall. Andrew headed the DNC under President Bill Clinton.

"We risk letting this moment slip through our fingers. We risk ceding the field to the Republicans and allowing the morally bankrupt Bush agenda to continue unabated if we do not unite behind a single candidate," Andrew said.

But what has come to hurt Obama is that he is dropping rapidly in national polls and in surveys in Indiana and North Carolina. Clinton is now seen in several polls as the democratic candidate beating the presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain.

The double digit advantage that Senator Obama had in North Carolina and Indiana a few weeks ago now seems a thing of the past.

"A spate of new public polls out this week confirms what we have been arguing for some time: Hillary Clinton is the strongest candidate to beat John McCain in November," Clinton adviser Harold Ickes wrote in a campaign memo yesterday.
Source : PTI