AFTER a long, bitterly fought but evenly matched campaign, Barack Obama, the
senator for Illinois who was almost unknown a year ago, has resolved to win
the Democratic presidential nomination in the next 48 hours, putting him on
the path to becoming America’s first black president.
Sources inside his campaign said there was a co-ordinated push this weekend to
obtain the endorsements of dozens of “superdelegates”, the Democrat
officials with a casting vote at the party’s convention in August.
This would put Obama within reach of victory on Tuesday, when voters in the
two remaining primaries in Montana and South Dakota could give him the
elected delegates that he needs to secure a majority over Hillary Clinton at
the convention.
If Obama succeeds it will mark the culmination of a remarkable battle that has
pitted the might of the Clinton dynasty against an untested, 46-year-old
candidate with an inspirational message of change and the unexpected
organisational and financial muscle needed to win.
In a bold move Obama will spend Tuesday evening at a huge rally in St Paul,
Minnesota, the venue for the Republican convention, where John McCain is due
to receive his party’s nomination in September. The initiative will put
America on notice that the campaign for the November 4 general election has
begun.
David Wilhelm, an adviser to Obama who served as Bill Clinton’s presidential
campaign manager in 1992, described his impending victory in the struggle to
become the Democrats’ candidate as “one of the most remarkable occurrences
in the history of American politics”. He added: “It is an extraordinary and
unlikely achievement which really speaks to the power of his message and
personality.”
Hillary Clinton, 60, was still fighting to stave off defeat as voters went to
the polls today in Puerto Rico, a contest in which she was expected to
prevail.
Hundreds of her supporters gathered outside a hotel in Washington yesterday to
press the party’s rules and bylaws committee to allow previous Clinton
victories in the Florida and Michigan primaries to be counted. The two
states were disqualified for holding their contests early.
Rosemary Camposano of WomenCount, who had travelled from California for the
rally, said: “Many of us know Hillary personally and we have a deep belief
in her capabilities. We are going to stand with her until the final votes
are counted.”
The committee agreed to award half a vote to all the Florida delegates but
wrangling continued last night over the fate of Michigan after Obama was
awarded four extra delegates from Clinton's total. Her aides threatened to
take the battle to the credentials committee after she gained only 24 extra
total delegates from the battle.
Clinton backer Harold Ickes said: "Hijacking four delegates is not a good
way to start down the path toward unity."
The final verdict left Obama just 66 delegates short of winning the
nomination.
Democratic party leaders such as Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Harry Reid, the Senate leader, and Howard Dean, chairman of
the Democratic national committee, are ready to corral superdelegates into
Obama’s camp if he has not crossed the finishing line by Tuesday night.
According to Reid, “it will be over, give or take a day”, after the last
primaries. If Clinton does not get the message, they are steeling themselves
to tell her to pack in her campaign.
The ease with which the Democratic party establishment has deserted the former
first lady has infuriated the Clintons. Pelosi, in particular, is a target
of their wrath. A Clinton adviser said Obama’s victory would ensure that
Pelosi remained “the senior skirt in the land”.
Congressman James Clyburn, the Democrats' chief whip in the House of
Representatives, intends to endorse Obama on Tuesday morning, sending a
clear signal to wavering superdelegates to follow his lead.
“It’s a realistic scenario, even a likely one, that he will win on Tuesday,”
said Tad Devine, a Democratic party strategist and veteran of primary
battles.
“The superdelegates will start moving over the weekend and on Monday so that
voters can finish the process.”
Wilhelm believes it is Clinton’s misfortune to have run against a candidate
with the supreme political gifts of her husband: “Bill Clinton was ‘the man
from Hope’ and in many ways Barack Obama’s campaign was run in his
tradition.”
Yet hard questions remain. Will Obama live up to his promise and beat McCain,
71, the veteran, combat-tested Republican? Or are the Democrats about to
hand the nomination to a political newcomer who could squander their best
chance in years?
Clinton appeared to acknowledge last week that the presidency had slipped out
of her reach while visiting Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, where the heads
of four presidents are carved into the granite.
Asked if she could see herself on the monument — as the first woman president
— she lifted her hands, said “I . . .”, sighed and fell silent.
On the campaign plane, Clinton fortified herself with a shot of bourbon while
joking with a dwindling band of journalists and smiling bravely on the eve
of a defeat that will leave her with personal debts of more than $11m
(£5.5m).
After this week, the only way she could win the nomination would be if
superdelegates reneged on their promises to endorse Obama, as they are
entitled to do. Only she knows whether she will finish her campaign this
week or whether that hope will be enough to keep her in the race.
“You can’t tell how far a frog will jump until you punch him,” she said
enigmatically, citing an old Arkansas saying.
Aides are already plotting their post-Clinton future. One of her campaign
staff called his personal trainer last week to say that he would be back in
the gym soon because “it’s over”.
Clinton is being urged by some supporters to fight on through the summer.
Camposano said: “I personally hope that she takes it to the floor of the
convention. It is not a fantastically positive way to go, but it’s a process
that has been well tested before.”
Senator Edward Kennedy took his 1980 campaign against Jimmy Carter, the
sitting president, to a vote at the convention. But after a divisive
showdown, the Democrats went on to lose the election to Ronald Reagan, the
Republican nominee.
The current battle has already divided the Democratic party between women and
men, whites and blacks and the young and old, sometimes bitterly so.
Geraldine Ferraro, a Clinton supporter and former vice-presidential nominee,
blamed sexism and anti-white racism for Clinton’s looming defeat.
“People have been stopping me to express a common sentiment,” she complained.
“If you’re white, you can’t open your mouth without being accused of being
racist.”
Clinton may still be hoping a real scandal will emerge — “Reverend Wright on
steroids”, as one pundit put it, referring to the anti-American black
supremacist comments of Obama’s former pastor.
Obama’s pastor problems rumble on. In a bid to cut off a damaging source of
controversy, Obama resigned yesterday from the Trinity United Church of
Christ in Chicago — the home of the Rev Jeremiah Wright — after another
friend and spiritual mentor, the Rev Michael Pfleger, was filmed at the
pulpit sneering at Clinton’s alleged racist mind-set.
Feigning the tears that welled up in Clinton’s eyes and helped to clinch her
victory in the New Hampshire primary, Pfleger claimed she was thinking: “I’m
white; I’m entitled; there’s a black man stealing my show.”
Obama had belonged to the church for 20 years, and Republicans have already
identified the gap between Obama’s rhetoric of unity and the rantings of his
friends as a big weak spot.
McCain, however, is beset by difficulties of his own, even though he cleared
his path to the presidential nomination back in February.
Instead of bolstering his position while the Democrats fought among
themselves, McCain’s campaign has been going backwards.
An outburst of candour by Scott McClellan, a former White House press
secretary under President George W Bush, in his memoir, What Happened,
showed the danger for McCain of being linked to Bush’s “third term” and the
Iraq war.
“History appears to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the
decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder,” McClellan wrote.
“War should only be waged when necessary and the Iraq war was not necessary.”
News of his tell-all broke as McCain was challenging Obama’s foreign policy
expertise and knowledge of the situation on the ground in Iraq, giving the
Illinois senator a ready means of counterattack.
Only recently Mark McKinnon, one of McCain’s top aides and a former Bush
confidant, confirmed he would resign from the campaign rather than fight
Obama in the general election.
McClellan last week joined a growing list of “compassionate conservatives” who
were once close to Bush but have become sympathetic towards Obama,
volunteering in a television interview that he was “intrigued” by his
message.
In an attempt to forestall attacks by Obama, McCain has also dismissed staff
with ties to potentially damaging lobbying groups — a precedent that could
lead to more sackings, given the number of high-level lobbyists that he
employs.
“He may eventually have to throw everybody overboard just so he can say he has
no ties to ‘special interests’ but where does that leave him?” said Tom
Edmonds, a Republican consultant. “Is he cutting off his nose to spite his
face just so he can answer a question in debate?”
McCain’s efforts to replace the missing staff with former loyalists could,
moreover, replicate some of the internal rows that led to an implosion of
his campaign last summer.
He has yet to recover from that experience, according to Edmonds. “He is
totally dependent on the Republican national committee to provide a
grassroots organisation for him and what they can offer may not be a good
fit. He is buying a suit off the rack, not a custom-made one,” Edmonds said.
If anybody can win on personality alone, it is McCain, with his reputation for
heroism while a prisoner of war. However, he will be facing the most
formidable fundraiser in election history, with a battle-hardened
organisation that will have already beaten the Clinton machine.
Wilhelm believes Bill Clinton’s experience in 1992 should send a worrying
message to McCain: “At this point in the electoral cycle Bill Clinton was
running third in the polls, but he still had time to reintroduce himself to
voters.”
Obama, he said, could use the same tactics against McCain that he had deployed
against Hillary Clinton to devastating effect: “Campaigns are usually about
the future, not the past, and Obama has been able to capture the
forward-looking position in the race.”
Video: Obama
speaking Spanish in Puerto Rico
Video: Hillary
dancing in Puerto Rico
Video: John McCain
- "Obama should see Iraq for himself"
This campaign goes beyond likes and dislikes. The Obama campaign has effectively begun the racial divide and pinned it all on the Clintons. For his sake I hope he is able to heal the divide come November, but it doesn't look that that is going to happen. Too bad.
Gini, Toledo,
Seems as if the Clintonistas strategy of relying on fuzzy math and the short attention spans of American voters has finally disintegrated. There will be a lot of corporate donors sorely disappointed that their huge financial investments in Clinton have produced such poor returns.
Robert , Boca Grande, USA
New leak from the Obama "Mission Accomplised"-Strategy Board. The Obama camp will suggest a "surrender" offering Clinton a Secretary for Health... Putting Clinton in charge of running the Obama healthcare plan, letting Clinton explain why universal healthcare is not offered 15 million people.
Sylvia Johnsen, Oslo, Norway
Some disappointed Clinton supporters have spoken of voting for McCain in November. I believe that as the campaign continues, they will see that McCain is far from the moderate he has been called. The Presidency of the USA is too large a position for personal likes or dislikes to enter the picture.
Michael Sheridan, Sacramento, California, USA
Democratic party leaders are asking for quick commitments from superdelegates -- Very different from the article's claim that the leaders will "corral superdelegates into Obama's camp if he has not crossed the finish line by Tuesday night." If the Supers commit to Clinton, then she'll win.
Jane Doss, Austin, TX, USA
Puerto Rico was the first primary til now to have a low turnout.
thrashing senator Clintons hopes to gain more support for her already tenuous bid to win the popular vote.
No doubt she will go down only kicking and screaming..More is the pity.
Tilleke, Mamer, Europe
The outcome of this primaries confirms that more than half of the democrats were not happy with Clinton as the default choice. Her most ardent supporters saw her as the perfect contender for years and never gave another candidate much consideration. That's why we see this deep division.
Red, Minneapolis,
There are a lot of Hillary supporters who will vote McCain: McCain is a moderate, and Hillary is center-left... Obama will have a hard time in November extending his appeal outside blacks and pointy-headed Washington elites. He totally failed in blue-collar states... middle-class is McCain's core.
Jane, Miami, FL
Why should Hillary bow out? Last time I checked, this was a Democracy and there was no law against her running. So why should she change her mind? You know, IF YOU REALLY WANT CHANGE -- VOTE FOR OBAMA! HE CHANGES HIS STORY EVERY DAY!
Zos, Everywhere, U. S.
Hillary already lost the chance to bow out with grace.... It is already too late and she is still using divisive and unnecessary words. She is so bitter and clinging to her broken ego that it is really a pity.
Lino, USA,
The last candidate to win the Dem. nomination and not carry the popular vote was McGovern. We all know how that turned out. Let's wait for the townhall meetings, I am sure we will then see who the inexperienced candidate is when he doesn't have the apron strings of Sen.Clinton to hold on to.
Genevieve , Birmingham, USA
Obama people loves to say Clinton campaign winning those 17 million voters failed. I wonder how happy the Obama strategist feel about their own chaos, going so negative that the opponents refuse to give up, trashing the opponents naming them racists, delusional, untrustworthy etc. Shame on them!
Sylvia Johnsen, Oslo, Norway
Hillary won the Puerto Rico primary. Good for her.
puerto Ricans are not eligible to vote for president
in the November general election. Who cares who they voted for in the primary. She won NOTHING.
Bruce Northwood, Washington, D.C., USA
Hillary Clinton feels she is entitled to being the Democratic Pres. Nominee. She argues she has a better chance of beating McCain based on poll results. Polls are fluid -- she had a 40 point lead 6 months ago. Being behind in fundraising, delegates and pop vote, she hasn't made a convincing case.
Cam, Hudson,
I think america is more sexist than recist. this race proved it to me. whereas for Obama, I feel sorry fro all the people who voted for him. I think Hillary supporters will vote for McCain in the end and the democratic party just shop themselves in the foot. This country is sexist.
anne-marie, portland,
Gracefulness? This is a person that's willing to do practically anything to get her way, regardless of the consequences for others.
Fortunately, the people of the U.S. knew better!
It will be great to see, in the near future, a woman candidate run who's truly electable!
Mary, U.S.A.,
If Hillary bows out with grace she will reap rewards down the road - but - if she takes this to the convention (or continues to bad mouth Obama at every turn) her politicial career will be over.
jaye, denver, usa
Also, Obama will gain voters from the Republicans and Independents. This is a win-win for the Democratic Party.
jaye, denver, usa
The Democrats should theoretically win the election, so it'll be all very pc in America with the first black president - or less likely the first woman president - and it will all end in tears. Many don't want a black in charge, others don't want a woman, they may vote Republican. What a mess!
Nobby, Lincoln, England
Obama will not be our next president; the American people can see right thru him: he is just en empty shirt. McCain has served his country honorable as has all of his sons. Mrs. McCain is a mom who has a young son in Iraq. This is an outstanding American family.
Mary, Wharton, U.S.A.
I applaud Senator Clinton for her bravery in running for the president of the United States, however, the time have come whereas, she now must do the right thing by conceding and bringing unity to the Democractic Party, this country can not endure another George Bush administration.
Alfreda Odom, Los Angeles, United States
Go for it Obama.You overcame the clintons and the rascist america now you have the support of all decent americans who lives and believes in today and tomorrow not in their shameful past.
ilyasnorat, Batley, united kingdom
It would have been nice if Hillary had helped the unity of the Democratic Party, recognizing the effort to accomodate Florida and Michigan voters as laudable and successful. But she had once again to put the distateful note of angry and bitter dissention! Is she even capable of gracefulness?
Ukelele, Alexandria, Va, USA
Obama's win in the primary battle is indeed a tribute to the power of his personality and his message. More importantly, it's a message about America to the rest of the World. Obama will undo all the damage inflicted by Bush!
J. Ram Ray, Silver Spring, USA - MD
Camp Clinton need to bow out now with grace. What should worry them more about the DNC RBC meeting yesterday is that Camp Obama had the votes they needed to win a 50-50 split of the Michigan delegates, but they chose to concede the fight for the sake of Party Unity! Now that's true leadership!
Jimmy C, Letchworth Garden City, UK
He doesn't need to tour Iraq. He needs to join her on a tour of the Appalachian Mountain region in an effort to convert mine, and yours into ours. It's not winner take all anymore and they need far more time than eight years.
Daedalus, Cohasset, Ma., USA
If Obama were not an African American, it would be another story. Race should be the pivotal requisition of election. However, it plays such a crucial role this time. Pity for you, Hillary, I love your smiles.
Ralph, LiaoNing , China
Who on earth cares. It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who gets in, a warmonger or a corporatist, neither will do anything useful, unless its for themselves!
Paul Downes, Milton Keynes, UK
Unless Mrs Clinton issues a statement conceding the race, Mr Obama's "victory" will not come until August - that's the only legitimate venue for the decision. By then, who knows what Obama family skeletons will be revealed, resulting in a move by superdelegates to, or back to Mrs Clinton.
David Cunard, Los Angeles, United States
Pfleger is so right! You all know Hillary thought she was entitled to get in the Whitehouse! Stop being fake and tell the truth! Hillary had no Idea this Man Borack Obama would take her claim away. And why would you agree to such terms [FLO&Mi] and now want to change the rules because you are losing
nealeo, Highland Park, michigan