BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Barack Obama has resigned himself to six more weeks of trench warfare against Hillary Clinton, whose win in Pennsylvania further muddled the Democratic presidential race.

“We assume this is going to go through June 3rd,” Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Wednesday in response to questions from The Examiner. “We want some conclusion to this by June so that the nominee has enough time to put together the convention and get more firmly organized in these states and begin to have a message discussion with John McCain.”

Plouffe said it would be problematic to prolong the nomination fight until the Democratic Convention in late August.

But Clinton made clear she will remain in the race even after June 3, when the remaining nine contests are concluded, if the Democratic Party has not resolved a dispute over Michigan and Florida. The party stripped the states of their delegates for holding primaries too early.

“I’m going to stay in until a nominee is selected, and I don’t see how we select a nominee until we resolve Florida and Michigan,” Clinton said Wednesday during a victory lap of television interviews. “So we’re going to go through the next nine contests, and I hope to do well in many of them, and we’re going to push the Democratic Party to resolve Florida and Michigan.”

If Florida and Michigan are not counted, Clinton trails Obama by 500,000 votes, even after outpolling him by 200,000, or 9.2 percent, in Pennsylvania. Clinton also trails Obama by more than 120 delegates, despite gaining about a dozen Tuesday.

Clinton’s strategy could be derailed if she loses the May 6 primaries in North Carolina, where she trails badly, and Indiana, where the candidates are running neck and neck.

Losses in those states could trigger a superdelegate stampede to Obama, and that could be fatal for Clinton, whose strategy depends on convincing uncommitted superdelegates that Obama is unelectable.

“Last night’s win should give a lot of fresh information to our superdelegates,” she said. “If you’re outspent three or four to one and you win by double digits, that raises more questions about your opponent than it does about you.”

But so far, those questions have not translated into many superdelegates breaking for Clinton.

“No doubt superdelegates are worried by what they see, but to this point, not worried enough to change affiliations,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “And really, how do you say no to the winner of the battle for pledged delegates and popular votes?”

Still, Pennsylvania was a “very healthy victory” for Clinton, Sabato said. He added: “She was massively outspent and had to endure crushingly negative reviews by the media and pundits, so you can’t undervalue the win.”

bsammon@dcexaminer.com