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Pressure grows on Democrats
23/03/2008 21:11 - (SA)
Michael Mathes
Washington - Democrats came under mounting pressure on Sunday to close ranks behind a single candidate, as Hillary Clinton faces dwindling mathematical possibilities of defeating Barack Obama for her party's nod for the White House.
The increasingly bitter presidential campaign faces weeks of harsh confrontation ahead of next month's crucial primary clash in Pennsylvania, one of 10 remaining contests to decide who will face off against Republican John McCain in November.
New York Senator Clinton is in an uphill battle to shrink the gap between her and Obama, the Illinois senator who holds a lead in the number of nominating delegates, the percentage of the nationwide popular vote and the number of contests won in the 2008 campaign.
Some analysts were saying Clinton's chances of pulling out a victory were receding by the day, with respected US newspaper Politico stressing Obama would have to be "hit by a political meteor" for Clinton to win the nomination.
Clinton's own campaign reportedly has acknowledged that there is virtually no way she can finish ahead of Obama in pledged delegates.
"She will be close to him but certainly not equal to him in pledged delegates," a Clinton advisor told Politico.
Estimates show Obama leading the former first lady in pledged delegates 1 628 to 1 493, and ahead in the primary popular vote by some 750 000 people.
In the hands of superdelegates
A Democratic presidential contender would need 2 025 delegates to secure the nomination, but with just about 500 more delegates still up for grabs it will be virtually impossible for either to win the contest outright.
That leaves the Democratic contest in the hands of 796 superdelegates, assigned by the Democratic National Committee, who can vote the way they wish at the convention.
Independent website RealClearPolitics.com puts the superdelegate count at 250 for Clinton and 214 for Obama as of Sunday.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who threw his support behind Obama on Friday, called on the campaigns to end their brutal bickering and unite behind Obama or risk a "bloodletting" that would alienate voters in the general election.
"The campaign has gotten too negative - too many personal attacks, too much negativity that is not resounding with the public," Richardson said on Sunday on Fox News, adding, "this has to stop.
"The Democrats (should) come together and look at who's ahead when it comes to delegates, when it comes to the popular vote, the number of states," he added.
"The best thing to do is unite around the candidate, start our message nationally, and make sure that we get a lot of healing done."
Do-over primaries
After race-tinged controversy last week saw his poll numbers slide, Obama has re-taken the lead in the latest Gallup poll, showing 48% of support compared to Clinton's 45%.
Clinton hopes to build a case for her candidacy with a triumph in the April 22 primary in delegate-rich Pennsylvania, where she leads in opinion polls.
Should Clinton win big there it would reinforce her camp's argument that her superior performance in populous states such as California and New York leaves her better positioned to carry such states in the general election, when a state's winner earns all of its electoral votes.
"When you combine that with Ohio, and Texas, and Florida, and Michigan and all of the other key states that we have to win in November, it sends a very important message that if we want to win (the general election) - and I think that's what Democrats care most about - that Hillary Clinton is our best candidate to win," Pennsylvania's Democratic Governor Edward Rendell said on Fox.
Rendell noted that if the Democratic primaries were winner-take-all instead of proportional, Clinton would be ahead by up to 70 electoral votes.
Clinton won the states of Florida and Michigan but the delegates were not counted because they violated party rules by holding their primaries too early.
The Clinton camp has pushed hard for do-over primaries or for the original votes to count, but the states have balked, and the latest attempts to get their delegates to the convention in Denver have failed.
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