With Sen. Barack Obama’s landslide victory in North Carolina and only a two-point loss to Sen. Hillary Clinton in Indiana, some Democrats said Tuesday that Clinton may now need something that was unthinkable just two months ago: An exit plan.

A senior Democratic strategist familiar with the Clinton campaign’s plans told BlackAmericaWeb.com Wednesday that shortly after the June 3 primaries in Montana and South Dakota, if a number of party figures known as superdelegates are switching their allegiance to Obama, then she would probably cut her losses and drop out of the race.

"She’s not going to tear the party apart," the strategist said Wednesday, "and she’ll be the first person up on the stage supporting Senator Obama."

Obama won a resounding victory in North Carolina after the worst two-week stretch in his campaign. And Clinton, fueled by a burst of energy from her convincing win in Pennsylvania last month, barely eked out a win in Indiana despite her full-throated populist appeal in that largely blue-collar state.

Obama picked up support from four more superdelegates Wednesday, pushing him ever closer to victory Clinton -- even as their primary marathon staggered on. She added two superdelegates.

Obama has extended his lead in the delegate count (1,848 to Clinton's 1,695.5) and, most important, has the leverage to ask uncommitted superdelegates to get off the fence and join his campaign. He is only 177 delegates short of the 2,025 needed to secure the Democratic nomination.

"Sen. Obama's decisive victory in North Carolina and his success in narrowing Sen. Clinton's margin of victory in Indiana to just a few points has in effect ended the Democratic presidential race," black conservative Michelle Bernard, president of the Independent Women’s Voice and a political analyst for MSNBC, told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

"Based upon the most important metrics before uncommitted superdelegates -- the number of elected delegates won, the number of states won, and the popular vote in state sanctioned elections -- Barack Obama should be the Democratic party's nominee," she said.

Obama’s campaign dropped broad hints it was time for the 270 remaining unaligned superdelegates to get off the fence and settle the nomination. There are just 217 delegates to be chosen in the final six primaries.

On May 20th, the date of the Kentucky and Oregon primaries, David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, predicted that Obama will clinch the majority of pledged delegates.

"That will happen on May 20th," Plouffe told reporters. "We think that will be an incredibly important date in the campaign."

In the days ahead, some Democrats will talk quietly about how to convince Clinton that it’s probably over, to bow out gracefully, and throw her support to Obama.

Clinton -- who canceled all of her scheduled appearances on the television news talk shows Wednesday -- plans to meet with superdelegates to make a case that she’s the stronger candidate to take on Republican John McCain in November.

It could prove to be a hard sell.

"What's now difficult for Sen. Clinton is trying to move forward with a rationale that suggests she is the alternative candidate to an embattled and unraveled Sen. Obama," Peter C. Groff, a Colorado state senator, publisher of Blackpolicy.org and executive director of the Center for African-American Policy at the University of Denver, told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

"It will be very difficult in the days and weeks ahead for Sen. Clinton to paint her Indiana victory as just that: A victory," Groff said.

"She was supposed to have carried a strong lead in Indiana, not a handful of votes, in the wake of Sen. Obama's most bruising set of weeks ever," he added. "And, who knows; once we later assess the impact of Indiana's voter ID law on black and young adult votes, combined with an even nominal impact from Republican-staged 'Operation Chaos' votes, one could make the argument that last night would have seen a close Obama win."

Meanwhile, according to Ron Allen of MSNBC, "to win the nomination now, the Clinton strategy, moving on to West Virginia and Kentucky and elsewhere, seems to have little to do with winning over African-American voters."

Some Democrats have said for months that Clinton’s game plan for winning has less to do with courting black voters and more to do with reaching out to white, blue-collar workers and suburban white residents.

Traci Blunt, a spokeswoman for the Clinton campaign, told BlackAmericaWeb.com Wednesday that Clinton will continue to court black voters aggressively.

"Sen. Clinton is not turning her back on anyone," Blunt said.

Clinton vowed to compete tenaciously for West Virginia next week and Kentucky and Oregon after that, and to press "full speed on to the White House."

She risked running on fumes without an infusion of cash, and made a direct fundraising pitch from the stage in Indianapolis in her victory speech. "I need your help to continue our journey," she said.

And she pledged anew that she would support the Democratic nominee "no matter what happens," a vow also made by her competitor.

In the meantime, Clinton loaned herself $6.4 million last month. The loan more than doubles Clinton's personal investment in her bid for the Democratic nomination. She gave her campaign $5 million earlier this year.

Of Obama, according to The New York Times: "His campaign was preparing to open a new front in his battle with Mrs. Clinton, intensifying the argument to uncommitted Democratic superdelegates that he weathered a storm and that the time was dawning for the party to concentrate on the general election."

In an overnight e-mail appeal for donations, Obama said: "We have a clear path to victory."

THe majority of political pundits agree.

"He has weathered the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy, kept his coalition together, increased the number of white, working class voters supporting his candidacy and demonstrated the folly of Sen. Clinton's populist call to suspend the gasoline tax over the summer," Bernard said.

And moving forward?

"The most important issues left to be resolved by the Democratic primary are what the rules committee will decide to do about Florida and Michigan's delegates and whether superdelegates will award the nomination to Sen. Obama based upon merit or to Sen. Clinton based upon some other factor," she said. "If Sen. Obama is denied the nomination, the relationship between blacks, young voters, new voters and the Democratic party could be strained and beyond repair for many generations to come."

There are six primaries left in the Democrats' epic battle for the nomination, but Tuesday's results were decisive on their own: They offered Clinton her last, best chance to turn the tables on her rival, and she didn't even come close.

"It's bad news for Hillary Clinton, but frankly, I think the game changed a long time ago," said unaligned Democratic strategist Garry South. "Barack Obama has outraised her substantially, he's won more states, more pledged delegates and is ahead in the popular vote. It's obvious he's outperformed her."

Meanwhile, Groff said, in terms of the North Carolina win, Obama also proves his ability to "master a big, swing state."

"More importantly, experts shouldn't so easily dismiss his performance in Southern and Western states. These are the regions where Democrats really need someone who is competitive in the general," he said.

"They know they'll get the Northern states as usual, but Obama is showing consistent strenghts in red Southern and Western states," Groff added. "His problem is that although he is consistently drawing solid enough numbers of white voters -- especially younger white voters -- he is not grabbing any additional share of that electorate. Which means he's favored to do well in states like Oregon and South Dakota. He could also do well in Kentucky, a Southern state."

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Associated Press contributed to this story.