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 Clinton gave a round of television interviews Wednesday before meeting with her finance team and top fundraisers at her Washington home.
Participants described the session as upbeat and said the unifying message was that Clinton, with her lopsided victory over front-runner Barack Obama in West Virginia on Tuesday, now had the lead in votes cast thus far. The numbers, however, include the results from the Florida and Michigan primaries, which the national Democratic Party has not recognized.
"You don't walk off the court before the buzzer sounds," Clinton said on CNN. "You never know, you might get a three-point shot at the end."
Advisers recalled the 2000 presidential election when Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the election to George W. Bush, and warned that Democrats would be hard pressed to deny the former first lady the nomination if the primary season ends with her ahead in the vote count.
They said she had attracted 22,000 new donors in the past four days and, on a conference call with reporters, campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said the campaign had pulled in a seven-figure fundraising haul online Tuesday night. He declined to offer more specific numbers.
Campaign officials also urged party leaders and elected officials known as superdelegates to remain uncommitted until the final primaries in Montana and South Dakota on June 3.
"We believe that after June 3 she will still be ahead in the popular vote as she is today," said Alexander Heckler, Clinton's Florida finance chairman. "If Hillary Clinton is winning the popular vote she should be the nominee."
That scenario relies on the Democratic National Committee agreeing to count the Florida and Michigan results. The national party refused to recognize the outcome of those elections as punishment to the states for moving their contests up ahead of schedule.
The party vowed not to award any nomination delegates in either state, and all the Democratic presidential candidates chose not to campaign in Michigan and Florida. While Clinton won both states, Obama's name was not on the Michigan ballot. A party committee has scheduled a May 31 hearing to consider proposals to seat the states' delegates.
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 Badly trailing Obama in fundraising and cash on hand, Clinton invited some 50 of her top national fundraisers to her home Wednesday to seek their help raising money to compete in the final five contests in Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota.
She faces a more than $20 million debt. Clinton owed $10 million at the end of March, has made loans to her campaign totaling of $11.4 million thus far and will more than likely end the primary season significantly in the red.
"We have the resources to go forward," McAuliffe said. "We've opened offices, we're up on TV, we have a full complement of staff and are raising money. I'm comfortable with where we are today."
On CNN, Clinton said that she shouldn't have suggested in a newspaper interview that Barack Obama was having trouble winning over "hardworking ... white Americans."
Told that a top black supporter, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., had called the remark "the dumbest thing you could have possibly said," Clinton said "Well, he's probably right."
Obama, if elected, would be the first black U.S. president.
On ABC News, Clinton said some voters may be discriminating against Obama because he is black but that there are probably an equal number voting against her because she's a woman.
"There are people ... who have reluctance about a woman, have reluctance about an African American. But thankfully, those are a relatively small minority," she said. "And I'm not sure that those people would ever vote for one of us."
[Associated
Press; By BETH FOUHY]
Associated Press writer Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright 2008 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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