WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama turned in earnest to the general election and the hunt for a running mate Wednesday, embraced by US Democratic leaders who signaled forcefully and sometimes impatiently to Hillary Rodham Clinton that her marathon duel with Obama was over. Clinton kept her silence in public, while supporters made a case for her as Obama's No. 2.

    Obama himself moved to link himself more closely with a young Democratic hero of a half-century ago, picking US President Kennedy's daughter Caroline to help him choose a vice president.

    While Clinton still wasn't conceding, even after Tuesday's primaries and a flood of "superdelegate" endorsements of Obama sealed the nomination, there were signs aplenty that she was closing shop. She began bidding campaign staff members farewell, and a number were told not to come to work after Friday. Last paychecks were expected to go out June 15.

    The primary rivals ran into each other backstage at a hall where both spoke to Jewish leaders, but Obama said there was no mention of how or when she would formally end her long campaign to become the United States' first female president.

    Obama showed no impatience, merely smiling and accepting congratulations from colleagues in both parties as he returned to the Capitol for a Senate vote. But other Democrats urged her to get out of the way.

    "I don't see why we don't g