Maybe they want a candidate who can win.

As Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton seeks to reassemble the Democratic money machine her husband built, some of its major fund-raisers have already signed on with Senator Barack Obama.

Among the biggest fund-raisers for Mr. ObamaÂ’s campaign are as many as a half-dozen former guests of the Clinton White House. At least two are close enough to the Clintons to have slept in the Lincoln bedroom.

At minimum, a dozen were major fund-raisers for President Bill Clinton. At least four worked in the administration and one, James Rubin, is a son of a former Clinton Treasury Secretary, Robert E. Rubin. About two dozen of the top Obama fund-raisers have contributed to Mrs. ClintonÂ’s Senate campaigns or political action committee, some as recently as a few months ago.

A list of Mr. ObamaÂ’s top fund-raisers released Sunday showed the extent to which the Democratic Party establishment, once presumed to back Mrs. Clinton, has become more fragmented and drifted into her rivalÂ’s camp, lending the early stages of the Democratic primary campaign the feeling of a family feud. Some of the movement would have been inevitable given Mr. ClintonÂ’s former dominance of the party.

The donors helped Mr. Obama, a first-term senator little known outside Illinois four years ago, best Mrs. Clinton in the first quarter of fund-raising for the Democratic primary by $5.7 million, according to reports filed Sunday with the Federal Election Commission.

But her campaign proved it still had the support of some deep pockets. About 5,100 big contributors accounted for about three quarters of the $26 million combined that she raised for the primary and general election, pulling her very slightly ahead of Mr. Obama by just $200,000 in total fund-raising for the quarter. And, with $10 million rolling over to her primary campaign from her last Senate race in New York, Mrs. Clinton was well ahead in cash in the bank.

Half of Americans reject Hillary as a potential president -- why would the Democrats want to nominate her?

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