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I still believe I can win - Clinton
26/05/2008 07:23 - (SA)
Washington - Hillary Clinton was full of defiance as the former first lady and her Democratic White House rival Barack Obama began their final full week of a history-making selection epic.
In the run-up to next Sunday's Puerto Rico primary, and the climactic contests two days later in Montana and South Dakota, Clinton scorned the pundits who believe her struggle to wrench the nomination from Obama is doomed.
"I am running because I still believe I can win on the merits," she argued in an article for Sunday's New York Daily News, insisting that she and not the Illinois senator could best go "toe to toe" with Republican John McCain.
"I'm standing up for the deepest principles of our party and for an America that values the middle class and rewards hard work," the New York senator said, while also pledging Democratic unity for November's presidential election.
Clinton again parried outrage over her invocation Friday of Robert Kennedy's assassination in June 1968 as justification for staying in the prolonged race. Obama was conciliatory on Saturday, arguing that "we should put it behind us".
Obama in the lead
Nearly six months since the costliest primary race in US history kicked off in Iowa in early January, Obama leads with 1 970 delegates to Clinton's 1 780, according to RearlClearPolitics.com.
The winning line is 2 026, leaving Obama on the cusp of becoming the first African-American selected as a major US party's presidential standard bearer.
But Clinton insists she will end up with more of the national popular vote - if the outlawed results of primaries in Florida and Michigan are counted - and is the better candidate to carry blue-collar and female Democrats.
Last week, Clinton likened a scheduling dispute involving the two states' primaries to the crisis over elections in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, and the US presidential recount debacle in Florida of 2000.
Obama said that Florida was the Clinton campaign's "last slender hope to make arguments about how they can win."
Next Saturday, at a meeting of the Democratic Party's rules committee, the Clinton campaign will press its case for the lion's share of convention delegates she won in Florida and Michigan to be reinstated.
Superdelegates will decide
But former president Jimmy Carter said on Sunday the race would be declared over by party superdelegates, who are free to vote for either candidate, after the final primaries on June 3.
"I have not yet announced publicly, but I think at that point it will be time for her to give it up," he told Britain's Sky News at a literary festival in Wales.
Even Congresswoman Jane Harman, a staunch Clinton loyalist, said "Obama clearly has the momentum" and predicted the nominating race "will be over soon".
When it is, Obama said he would move "quickly" to choose a vice-presidential nominee.
"The loser will concede graciously," Harman told CNN, raising the prospect of a "unity ticket" coupling Obama and Clinton.
McCain looking for running mate
McCain has already begun his hunt for a running mate, according to reports, with the Republican spending this weekend at his Arizona ranch with three prospective candidates.
They were Florida Governor Charlie Crist, the new Indian-American governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, and former presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. The McCain campaign said the get-together was purely social.
- AFP
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US Elections Special Report
