HARRISBURG -- No one worked harder than Pennsylvania's Gov. Ed Rendell to try to make New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton the Democratic nominee for president this year. He was a big reason why she was able to defeat Illinois Sen. Barack Obama by a wide margin in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary.

But now that she has lost the nomination to Mr. Obama, no one is working harder than Mr. Rendell for Democratic party unity.

Mr. Rendell's latest concern is a newly formed group of Clinton supporters who are using the acronym PUMA, or People United Means Action, according to aide Chuck Ardo.

The Washington Blade, which bills itself on its Web site as "the gay and lesbian news source of record" for Washington, D.C., and national gay news, reported that Will Bower, a district Clinton supporter who is also a columnist for the online Huffington Post blog, is one of the founders of the PUMA group. "I feel that Barack Obama is an anti-democratically chosen candidate," Mr. Bower told the Blade. "I think it's the worst of the system that has put him at the top of the ticket."

To counter the PUMA group, Mr. Rendell is creating another new group, which also has an animal name -- HOUND, or "Hillary-Obama United Not Divided."

"We must get over our disappointment and not waste time looking back and thinking about what might have been," the governor said, though he added in a statement, "No one should cast a vote for president [merely] because of a desire to achieve party unity."

Mr. Rendell said Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama agree on their approach to major issues such as health care, the economy, energy, education and the war in Iraq -- "core values that made us all Democrats."

Mr. Rendell said Mrs. Clinton herself recently said "the best way to achieve the changes she has fought so hard to bring to America, and on which she based her campaign, was to support Senator Obama."