Clinton is 'Staying in This Race,' but Road Seems to Be Rocky
Posted on: Thursday, 8 May 2008, 09:00 CDT
Broke and politically battered, Hillary Rodham Clinton has few options left as she vows to fight on for a Democratic presidential nomination that appears to be slipping from her grasp.
Tuesday's disappointing results left her falling farther behind in delegates and the popular vote, her campaign on financial life support and time running out to find a way to stop rival Barack Obama from winning the nomination.
Clinton revealed that she lent her campaign $6.4 million in recent weeks - $5 million on April 11, $1 million on May 1 and $400,000 on May 5.
"The loans are a sign of Senator Clinton's commitment to the race," campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said, adding that she might lend more if necessary.
It might become necessary - as there were no signs of money pouring into the campaign as it did after she won the Pennsylvania primary two weeks ago. Then, the campaign issued bulletins boasting of $10 million in contributions coming in overnight; on Wednesday, aides said they didn't even check.
She's now apparently reduced to pursuing two potentially divisive options that could hurt the party: Magnify the racial fault line in the party by stressing Obama's inability to win white working-class voters, and press the party to change its rules and seat unsanctioned delegations from Florida and Michigan at the national convention in August.
Both are designed to convince superdelegates - party officials and insiders who can vote however they choose - that they should ignore Obama's lead in delegates won in state voting and swing the nomination to her, even at the risk of alienating the party's most loyal constituency, African Americans, who've voted for Obama in overwhelming numbers.
Some analysts and Democratic leaders, past and present, viewed Tuesday night's results as the end of the Clinton era in the Democratic Party.
"There is going to be a new set of people running the show," said Simon Rosenberg, executive director of the New Democratic Network, a political action organization not affiliated with any candidates. "The Clintons and their allies have been running the show for 16 years. You're going to see a new generation of political leaders coming to the fore. It's going to create an upheaval."
Gary Hart, a former Colorado senator who ran for president in 1984 and is supporting Obama, said: "At least half the Obama administration, if he is elected, will be people in the White House for the first time: Cabinet members and senior appointees."
"The Clintons had an important role in the recent history of the Democratic Party and will always play some role, given their success at bringing this country peace and prosperity," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who backs Obama. "But elections are about the future, not the past. It's a new era. This is a new spirit that's out there."
Former Sen. George McGovern, an early supporter of Clinton's, urged her to drop out of the race and endorsed Obama.
After watching the returns Tuesday night, McGovern said Wednesday that it's virtually impossible for Clinton to win the nomination now. The 1972 Democratic presidential nominee said he had a call in to former President Clinton to tell him of the decision, adding that he remains close friends with the Clintons.
"I will hold them in affection and admiration all of my days," he said of the Clintons.
Sen. Clinton was undeterred by Tuesday's results - she lost North Carolina by 14 percentage points and eked out victory in Indiana, where she'd been favored, by only 2 points - or by a new round of calls for her to step aside and support Obama to unify the party and help it rally for the fall campaign against Republican John McCain.
"I'm staying in this race until there's a nominee," she said Wednesday.
In a conference call with reporters, Clinton campaign strategist Geoff Garin and other top aides explained why they saw good news in Tuesday's results to justify a continued campaign and how they thought she still could wrest the nomination away.
In Indiana, they said, Clinton managed a narrow win despite being outspent by Obama, who spent $300,000 at the last minute to buy ads on Chicago TV to boost turnout by supporters in northwestern Indiana.
Even in North Carolina, Garin said, the Clinton campaign was bolstered because it won the white vote by 24 points. He said Clinton was gaining among white voters from the time she lost that bloc in neighboring Virginia in February.
"When we began in North Carolina," Garin said, "we were running exactly even with white voters in North Carolina ... and ended up winning a very significant win of 24 points among those voters."
He said that whites, particularly working-class voters, will be a swing voting bloc in the fall and that Clinton could hold them better than Obama could.
"The results last night strengthened the case that she will be the strongest candidate for the Democratic Party in November," Garin said. "It allows us to go on."
Clinton aides also will press to seat delegates from Florida and Michigan, where she won unofficial and uncontested primaries.
The Democratic National Committee had stripped the two states of delegates long before the voting because each scheduled its primary early, in defiance of party rules.
Clinton will support a proposal to get the party's rules and bylaws committee on May 31 to recommend that the delegations be seated regardless of the party rules. That would add 58 pledged delegates to Clinton's column, aides said, and narrow Obama's lead.
Yet even if the committee - and the larger credentials committee, which would hear any appeal - did seat Florida's and Michigan's delegations, Clinton wouldn't overcome Obama's lead under any foreseeable scenario with six small primaries remaining through June 3.
And party officials would have to weigh the costs of changing the rules - both on this year's election and on future elections.
First is the risk of backlash from Obama supporters.
Second is the likelihood that the party would lose control over its primary calendar.
This article was compiled from reports by McClatchy News Service, The New York Times and The Associated Press.
upcoming primaries
Tuesday
West Virginia, 39 delegates
May 20
Kentucky, 60 delegates Oregon, 65 delegates
June 1
Puerto Rico, 63 delegates
June 3
Montana, 24 delegates South Dakota, 23 delegates
Source: Virginian - Pilot
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