With a six-week breather before the next primary, Hillary Rodham Clinton turned her attention to Pennsylvania and beyond to counter the latest in a string of victories by Barack Obama in Southern states with large black voting blocs.

Obama won roughly 90 percent of the black vote in Mississippi on Tuesday, but only about one-quarter of the white vote. That was similar to the breakdown that helped him win South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana before losing to Clinton in Texas and Ohio, which has similar voter demographics to neighboring Pennsylvania.

''We have now basically recovered whatever delegates we may have lost in Texas and Ohio, and we have a substantial lead,'' Obama said Wednesday morning during a round of television network interviews.

Maggie Williams, Clinton's campaign manager, congratulated Obama on his victory in a written statement. ''Now we look forward to campaigning in Pennsylvania and around the country,'' Williams said.

Obama, in claiming his victory in Mississippi, said he expects to be the Democratic nominee and ''the party is going to be unified.'' Clinton was attending a presidential forum in Washington on Wednesday. Obama planned to be in his hometown of Chicago.

With 99 percent of the vote counted, Obama had 61 percent to 37 percent for Clinton.

Republican Sen. John McCain, who has already won enough delegates to claim the GOP nomination, rolled up 79 percent of the vote in Mississippi.

Obama picked up at least 17 of Mississippi's 33 delegates to the Democratic National Convention, with five more to be awarded. He hoped for a win sizable enough to erase most if not all of Clinton's 11-delegate gain from last week, when she won three primaries.

The Illinois senator had 1,596 delegates to 1,484 for Clinton. Other than Pennsylvania, the remaining primaries are in Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota.

Meanwhile, Obama expressed frustration Wednesday that racial issues keep rising to the top of his presidential battle with HClinton, but he said the great majority of voters will base their decisions on substantive issues.

At a news conference, Obama said he feels his primary victories in an array of states have proven he can draw support from all races and regions, and that he is not overly reliant on black voters.

''We keep on thinking we've dispelled this,'' he said. ''And it keeps on getting raised once again.''He said critics suggest ''maybe he hasn't proven that he can win white, blue-collar workers.''

He said this as racial controversy rocked the Democratic campaigns following remarks last week by a Clinton supporter that many viewed as racist. But Obama said Geraldine Ferraro's recent comments about his candidacy were ridiculous, but not racist. Ferraro resigned from the Clinton campaign late Wednesday.

Ferraro, the party's vice presidential nominee in 1984, caused a ruckus by telling the Daily Breeze newspaper in Torrance, Calif.: ''If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.''

Asked if the remarks were racist, Obama said, ''I don't think she intended them that way.'' But he called them ''ridiculous'' and ''wrong-headed.'' He mocked her suggestion that he cannot win large states that will be key battlegrounds in November.

Source: Associated Press