Battleground North Dakota? You Betcha!

April 4, 2008— -- Hotels are packed, local police on alert, and restaurants are calling in extra staffers. The nation's greatest political show — the historic Democratic slugfest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — is coming to town.

Their latest target in this vote-by-vote war for every delegate? 16,000 Democratic faithful at the party's state convention in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

"What a coup!" exclaimed Tom Dennis in an editorial for the Pulitzer Prize honored Grand Forks Herald.

But why come to a city of 50,000 people in a state that has awarded its three electoral votes to a Democratic contender only three times in history and only once since 1964? Oh yeah, and they've already voted for Barack Obama in their Super Tuesday caucuses.

"There is no such thing as a pledged delegate," Clinton told reporters when asked about her decision to travel to the state on Thursday.

According to ABC News estimates, Obama won 14 of North Dakota's 21 delegates while Clinton took 5. And all but one of the state's seven superdelegates have already endorsed Obama.

The race — at least in North Dakota — appears to be over. But don't tell that to Hillary Clinton.

"The whole point is for delegates, however they are chosen, to really ask themselves who would be the best president and who would be our best nominee against Senator [John] McCain," Clinton said at her Thursday press conference. "And I think that process goes all the way to the convention."

But not everyone in the Clinton camp seems as resolute as the former first lady.

In an interview with the Huffington Post's Sam Stein, Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Penn., who had endorsed Clinton ahead of Pennslyvania's April 22 primary, said flatly, "She has to be ahead in the popular vote to have any chance at all of getting this nomination."

At the moment, Clinton trails Obama by 100,000 votes nationally — and that figure includes the votes of Florida and Michigan, two contested primaries, including one in which Obama's name wasn't on the ballot.