WASHINGTON (AFP) - Struggling to unpick Barack Obama's lock on the White House nomination, Hillary Clinton is brooking no compromise ahead of a Democratic Party meeting about the outlaw states of Florida and Michigan.

Protestors are set to descend en masse on Saturday's meeting here of the party's rules committee, which has taken on added urgency for the former first lady as the nominating race reaches a climax.

Invoking Robert Mugabe's bloodied Zimbabwe, Clinton argues that democracy itself is at stake in the argument about whether Florida and Michigan should be fully represented at the Democratic convention in August.

"There's one number that we're going to be satisfied with, and that's 2.3 million people having their votes counted," said Tina Flournoy, a pro-Clinton member of the national party's rules and bylaws committee.

What began as an intra-party spat over the timing of the two states' primaries has taken on outsized importance, now that Clinton must squeeze out every last vote and delegate to wrest the Democratic nomination from Obama.

In the process, the New York senator has reversed her own support of the party's punishment of state leaders in Florida and Michigan for holding their contests in January in violation of the primary calendar.

Now, her campaign argues, the party risks electoral suicide in November if it ignores the will of the 1.7 million voters who took part in Florida's primary and the 600,000 who turned out in Michigan.

"Our expectation and our belief is the DNC (Democratic National Committee) will vote on Saturday to seat Florida and Michigan at 100 percent," Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said.

Clinton aides were coy about whether they might fight all the way to the convention in Denver if she does not win a favorable outcome this weekend.

However, DNC staff lawyers say it is not an option to restore full voting rights to all 210 delegates originally apportioned to Florida, and the 156 given to Michigan.

In a memo to the committee's 30 members recapping the party's rules, the lawyers said that at most, the DNC could reinstate half the delegates, or give half a vote each to all of them.

Either way, there is no chance of Saturday producing a dramatic boost to Clinton's delegate count as Obama homes in on the right to take on Republican John McCain in the presidential election.

But the Clinton campaign does need Florida and Michigan to count to lend credence to her argument that she leads the national popular vote, and is more electable against McCain in pivotal swing states.

Clinton took 50 percent of the vote in Florida, where all the Democratic candidates agreed not to campaign. In Michigan, where Obama took his name off the ballot, she took 55 percent to 40 percent for "uncommitted."

According to the Obama campaign, heading into Sunday's primary in Puerto Rico and the two final battles on Tuesday in Montana and South Dakota, he needs just 45 more delegates to reach the current winning line of 2,026.

While that number could go up depending on a DNC fix this weekend, both candidates would still need the support of enough Democratic grandees called "superdelegates" to go over the top. But Obama would need far fewer.

The Illinois senator, anxious to take on McCain, is offering a compromise deal that would give Clinton a slight net gain in delegates from Florida and Michigan, without much changing the overall tally.

"Any compromise beyond a 50-50 split will cost Senator Obama delegates," former DNC chairman David Wilhelm said.

"But the bottom line is that he is acting this weekend in the interest of party unity. And we're going to need that to win in November."

The Obama campaign urged his supporters to stay away from Saturday's meeting. "We're not going to turn this thing into a circus," Wilhelm said.

But one group called Florida Demands Representation said it was expecting more than 2,000 demonstrators at the meeting.

The group, highlighting the state's recount debacle in the 2000 election, has been sending Florida oranges to DNC members inscribed with the message "Count our Vote."

AFP, May 29, 2008

Protests planned at party meeting

WASHINGTON - The epic battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination shifted yesterday to the disputed delegates from Florida and Michigan, whose fate is rapidly becoming the flash point for Clinton supporters' anger.

Hundreds of her backers, including a contingent from Massachusetts, plan to protest outside the Washington hotel hosting the party's Rules and Bylaws Committee, whose ruling on Saturday could determine whether the nomination fight ends next week - or perhaps continues all the way to the party's convention in late August.

"We want people to know why we're there and that we are supporting the Clinton campaign and we feel she's the better candidate," said Christine Samuelson, a 57-year-old realtor and former Newton alderwoman who volunteered for Clinton in five states during the primaries. "And we want to make sure that she gets a fair shake."

Clinton's loyalists are encouraging the protests - and ratcheting up arguments for why Clinton deserves the lion's share of the un seated delegates because she handily won the two states' unsanctioned primaries. By contrast, Obama's campaign told its supporters in an e-mail to stay away. Currently within 45 delegates of clinching the nomination, Obama wants to avoid a spectacle that could harden the divide within the party.

"With a click of a mouse in the mid-Atlantic, we could get thousands of people there," Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, told reporters yesterday. "But in the interest of party unity, we are not encouraging a protest. We don't think a scene is helpful as we try to bring the party together."

Though Plouffe said the fairest resolution "would be a 50-50 split" with Clinton, her campaign has flatly rejected that proposal, saying she should be awarded more delegates, in proportion to her victory margin in both states.

Steven Grossman, a top Clinton fund-raiser and Massachusetts supporter, said Obama would be wise to recognize that Saturday will be a "singular moment" to mollify Clinton and her supporters. "To the extent that Senator Obama and his campaign and his supporters demonstrate the kind of collegiality and collaboration on Saturday that shows both the kind of nominee he will be, should he be the nominee, and the kind of president he will be, should he win on Nov. 4, that will go a long way toward rebuilding relationships that are going to be essential over the next several months to beat John McCain," said Grossman, a former national party chairman.

The Democratic National Committee voided the Florida and Michigan delegations to punish them for holding primaries in January, ahead of schedule. The candidates pledged not to campaign in the two states, and Obama pulled his name off the Michigan ballot.

But as she fell behind Obama, Clinton began arguing more emphatically that her wins should count, and she now needs the biggest possible gain from the two states to have any hope of catching Obama. Campaigning last week in Florida, she compared her fight to the struggles of blacks and women for the right to vote and warned that Democrats were in danger of repeating the 2000 Florida presidential vote debacle.

The rules committee is scheduled Saturday to hear from both campaigns and come up with a settlement, but its ruling could be appealed to the credentials committee at the national convention.

In a memo sent to the rules committee late Tuesday, the party's lawyers declared that at most the panel can restore only half of the two states' 368 total delegates. The DNC said yesterday, however, that the lawyers were not recommending that solution, and their memo did not outline how to divide any delegates between Clinton and Obama.

Senior Clinton aides also disputed that the lawyers' memo called for taking away at least half of the two states' delegates.

If Clinton were awarded half the delegates she won in the two states, and if Obama received none from Michigan, she would cut his lead from about 200 delegates to 150, and Obama would be about 50 delegates farther away from the finish line.

Of the 30-member rules panel, 13 have endorsed Clinton, eight have endorsed Obama, and the rest - including the two cochairpersons - are undeclared. Clinton advisers could not say whether all of her backers would vote for full seating of the delegates.

"We are hopeful and expectant that people will do the right thing - and the right thing will be seating delegates at 100 percent of strength," said Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director.

Clinton also wants the popular votes in Florida and Michigan to count to give her the overall lead - a key part of her closing argument to the dwindling number of undeclared superdelegates, the party and elected officials who in all likelihood will decide the nomination.

She sent them a letter and accompanying 11-page memo yesterday, insisting that she, not Obama, would be the strongest Democrat to go up against McCain in November. She contends that she has won more primaries than Obama, leads McCain in the polls in the swing states a Democrat must win, and has the support of most core Democratic voters: women, seniors, Latinos, and working-class and rural voters.

"And most important," she wrote to superdelegates, "I hope you will think about who is ready to stand on that stage with Senator McCain, fight for the deepest principles of our party, and lead our country forward into this new century."

As the fiercely-contested, sometimes bitter contest between Clinton and Obama heads toward resolution, the strong undercurrent of anger among many Clinton supporters could hamstring Obama's attempt to unify the party behind him if, as expected, he secures the nomination.

Her supporters, including older women - her central constituency and an important one for Obama to win over - resent the repeated calls over the last several weeks by prominent Democrats for Clinton to drop out. And they believe party officials have been dismissive of Clinton's claims about winning Michigan and Florida outright, and too willing to embrace Obama as the presumptive nominee.

Samuelson and a small group of supporters have purchased air time on local television for a 30-second ad contending that the Florida and Michigan delegations should be seated for Clinton. Samuelson said that if the election were held today, she would write in Clinton's name on the ballot rather than vote for Obama.

Therese Murray, the Massachusetts Senate president and an ardent Clinton backer, said if the rules panel does not fully seat the Florida and Michigan delegations, it would regret it come November. "The voters shouldn't be disenfranchised. They went out and they voted in force," she said.

But others say the divisions within the party will fall away once the general election race begins in earnest.

"In the heat of a contest, people say all kinds of things," said state Representative Ruth B. Balser, a Clinton supporter who said she will support the Democratic nominee, whoever it is. "What's important is that both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have said that at the end of the day, whoever is the nominee, they will work their heart out to elect a Democrat. They have set the tone."

By Joseph Williams and Scott Helman, The Boston Globe, May 29, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) - The long, drawn-out Democratic presidential primary season finally draws to a close next Tuesday. Hillary Clinton takes her campaign today to one of the last two states voting, South Dakota. Rival Barack Obama is taking a breather back home in Chicago. And Republican John McCain will be talking to voters in Wisconsin.

South Dakota is predominantly Republican. And even though many of its voters have a lot in common with those who've backed Clinton in other primaries, most of the South Dakota Democrats who've ever won statewide election are backing Obama. That includes former Senator George McGovern, who was the presidential nominee in 1972.

South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday are a final chance for the candidates to display vote-getting power that could sway superdelegates elsewhere.

Kevin Rodriquez is a superdelegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands. And he's become the first to switch away from Obama and back to Clinton. It's the second time he's switched. Rodriquez won't say why but says it's his right and is about doing "what's best for America."

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate John McCain dared Obama to make a joint visit with him to Iraq to see "the facts on the ground" and accused the Democratic front-runner of lacking the wisdom or experience to back his view that the war was a mistake.

Obama snapped back that "I don't think John McCain or the Bush administration have a very strong argument to make about their foreign policy, so they're going to try to come up with diversions or distractions and not argue the substance."

Obama's campaign has been considering an overseas trip since last year to beef up his foreign policy credentials, but the extended fight for the Democratic nomination with Hillary Rodham Clinton has delayed those plans.

"A trip is under consideration but no final plans have been made," Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said.

The Illinois senator made his only trip to Iraq in January 2006 as part of a congressional delegation. McCain, a senator from Arizona, has been to Iraq eight times, most recently in March.

Obama picked up some fresh support Wednesday heading into a primary that could finally put him over the edge for the Democratic nomination.

Obama, who has increasingly turned his attention to the general election, got endorsements Wednesday from four more superdelegates but lost one. Their backing is essential because they are free to vote as they chose in the party's nominating convention in August.

Heading into Sunday's primary in Puerto Rico, the first-term senator has a nearly insurmountable lead in delegates to the party's national nominating convention, and is now 45 short of the 2,026 needed to capture the party's White House nod.

Puerto Rico's presidential primary, the island's first in nearly three decades, has brought the focus of American politics to a U.S. territory where residents cannot vote in the general election and largely do not identify with any mainland party.

But, with 55 delegates to be apportioned between him and Clinton, eyes are on the territory because Obama could theoretically clinch the nomination if he beats his rival. Clinton is counting on a victory to bolster her claim to have won the majority of popular votes based on a selective count of Democratic contests.

On Wednesday, McCain was continuing fundraising, with events in Los Angeles and Reno, Nevada. Obama was also in the west, offering a prelude to a likely general election matchup and the inevitable fight for three booming battleground states.

McCain sounded stung that Obama characterized the idea of a joint visit to Iraq as a "stunt," saying it showed Obama's "lack of appreciation of the importance of this issue."

"I just don't want to be involved in a political stunt," Obama said told the Web site of The New York Times on Wednesday.

"I think that if I'm going to Iraq, then I'm there to talk to troops and talk to commanders," Obama said in the interview. "I'm not there to try to score political points or perform. The work they're doing there is too important."

McCain supports continued U.S. military involvement in Iraq; Obama opposes the war and wants to bring home the troops.

McCain said Obama "was driven to his position by ideology and not by the facts on the ground. And he does not have the knowledge or the experience to make the judgments. Presidents have to listen and learn. Presidents have to make judgments no matter how popular or unpopular they may be."

Obama, who spoke to reporters on his airplane Wednesday night as he flew home to Chicago, said it's "not relevant" that he hasn't been to Iraq since 2006 and that McCain was using the argument as a diversion.

Clinton campaigned Wednesday in South Dakota which along with Montana hold the last two primaries on June 3. Her campaign aides were in Washington peppering uncommitted superdelegates with data indicating why she should be the Democratic presidential nominee.

Obama has 1,981 delegates, to Clinton's 1,780. A total of 2,026 delegates are needed to secure the nomination at present.

Clinton also is counting on a Democratic Party rules committee Saturday to seat the delegations from Michigan and Florida, whose primaries were voided when they were moved into January in violation of party rules.

Obama is willing to give her the lion's share of those delegates but is stopping short of her demand to fully recognize the two renegade states.

The DNC staff wrote in an analysis sent to members this week that the rules call for the two states to lose at least half their delegates at a minimum for voting too early.

The Associated Press, May 29, 2008

An analysis by lawyers for the Democratic Party says party rules call for Florida and Michigan to lose at least half their delegate strength at the party's convention in August, an outcome that could close off Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's last opportunity to cut significantly into Senator Barack Obama's lead in delegates.

The legal analysis, sent late Tuesday to the party's rules committee, is expected to guide a meeting this weekend where the committee will try to settle one of the most contentious issues remaining in the Democratic presidential race: what to do with delegates from Florida and Michigan, which violated party rules by moving up their primaries ahead of Feb. 5.

Mrs. Clinton had hoped for the full Florida and Michigan delegations to be seated, and for their votes to be apportioned according to the results in their primaries, which she won. But the lawyers' analysis said that as punishment for the primaries' being held early, party rules allowed the states nothing more than that their delegations be cut in half, or that the full delegations be seated with each delegate getting only half a vote.

As a result, Mrs. Clinton would appear to need all the more superdelegates to swing her way if she has any remaining hope for the nomination.

To that end, she stepped up her appeal Wednesday to superdelegates, the Democratic officeholders and party officials who could ultimately decide the nomination. In a letter, she argued that she would be a stronger nominee than Mr. Obama against Senator John McCain in the fall.

She leads in polls in swing states, the letter said, has support from regions and demographics that the Democrats need, is ahead of Mr. McCain in Gallup national tracking polls while Mr. Obama is behind him, and is better positioned to win in the Electoral College, mainly because she leads Mr. McCain in polls in Ohio and Florida.

The Democratic nominating battle has only three primaries left, and all take place over the next week, in Puerto Rico on Sunday and in Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday. Mr. Obama may be poised to claim the nomination after those contests, though he will need additional superdelegates to do so.

Mr. Obama is now a mere 51 delegates short of the 2,026 needed for the nomination. Those numbers do not count Florida and Michigan, and so they could be altered somewhat by the results of the rules committee's meeting.

The committee is to convene Saturday at a Washington hotel. Demonstrations are expected there on Mrs. Clinton's behalf; the Clinton campaign has said it is not organizing them but has not discouraged them.

David Plouffe, Mr. Obama's campaign manager, said the Obama camp had advised against rallies, despite calls on the Internet for counterprotests. Mr. Plouffe said the campaign did not want to contribute to a chaotic scene, which, he said, would not serve the interests of party unity.

Mrs. Clinton's organization is still hoping that the rules committee seats at least some of the Florida and Michigan delegates. Such a decision could legitimize her claims to hundreds of thousands of popular votes in the two states and bolster her assertion that she leads Mr. Obama in popular votes nationally, though he did not even appear on the ballot in Michigan.

Whatever the committee decides, Mrs. Clinton could appeal its decision by undertaking a credentials fight at the convention.

For now, though, both campaigns are negotiating with the committee's co-chairmen. Mr. Obama has said he wants Florida and Michigan delegates seated. He has not specified how many, or how they should be apportioned, but on Wednesday, Mr. Plouffe told reporters that Mrs. Clinton was "going to end up netting delegates if there's a compromise here, and we think that's a pretty major concession."

It is not a concession the Obama camp would make, of course, if it in any way threatened Mr. Obama's delegate lead.

The committee has several sticky issues to address. That Mr. Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan, for example, raises the question of what proportion of delegates he might be awarded, if any, from that state. One compromise calls for him to be awarded the 40 percent received by "uncommitted."

In addition, the committee, while trying not to alienate voters in these two battleground states, does want to send a signal to all states that it will punish them if they try to jump ahead in the presidential primaries four years from now.

Mrs. Clinton pressed her case Wednesday on multiple fronts: on the campaign trail, in a written fund-raising appeal and in the letter to superdelegates.

Accompanying that letter was a fact sheet citing a quotation from Mr. Obama that suggested there might be some injustice if the nomination was not given to the candidate with the most popular votes.

"On February 8th," it said, "Senator Obama said that if someone had the most pledged delegates and the most votes in the country, that 'it would be problematic for political insiders to overturn the judgment of the voters.' It appears that when all the votes are counted June 3rd, Hillary Clinton will be the candidate with the most votes."

Mrs. Clinton was accompanied by a skeleton crew of aides and a diminished press corps Wednesday as she continued to tour some of the remotest parts of America. After a tourist stop at Mount Rushmore, she drove nearly three hours across the desolate Badlands to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and made her electability argument to a somewhat bewildered crowd of about 250 people outside the Little Wound School.

"I believe the electoral votes that I will win make a very strong argument," she said. "Look at the states I won and will win. These are the states that form the base of a Democratic victory."

But there was also an elegiac tone to some of her remarks.

"I view my run for president as a solemn obligation," she said. "I don't run for president because I need any more publicity. I don't run for president because I need the adulation or the celebrity. I don't run for president to live in the White House. That was a wonderful experience, but that's not why I run. I run because I believe we can do so much better for our country. The unkept promises are corrosive."

WASHINGTON - The three senators who would be president have agreed to a rare joint statement accusing the Sudanese government of atrocities against civilians in Darfur and warning it not to try to run out the clock on the Bush administration, which has called the killings in Darfur genocide.

"Today, we wish to make clear to the Sudanese government that on this moral issue of tremendous importance, there is no divide between us," declared a joint statement to be released on Wednesday by the Save Darfur Coalition on behalf of Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama. "If peace and security for the people of Sudan are not in place when one of us is inaugurated as president on Jan. 20, 2009, we pledge that the next administration will pursue these goals with unstinting resolve."

The statement is largely symbolic because the three are not proposing any specific Congressional action against Sudan. Nor are they calling for tangible steps by the United States to put pressure on the Sudanese government. For instance, the statement is silent about whether the Bush administration should use its turn as president of the United Nations Security Council in June to seek further ways to press Sudan.

But the statement is meant to send a message to the government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan that the next American president will continue to sound an alarm on Darfur. Under the Bush administration, the United States has sought to harness international pressure, particularly at the United Nations, to get Sudan to accept a contingent of international peacekeeping forces in Darfur.

The administration has also entered into talks with Sudan and is holding out the prospect of normalizing its diplomatic ties with the United States and removing it from a list of state supporters of terrorism if Sudan agrees to allow Thai and Nepalese peacekeepers into Darfur.

At least 200,000 people have been killed there since the Arab-dominated government of Sudan unleashed tribal militias known as the janjaweed on non-Arab rebel groups and civilians. The Sudanese government says that the death toll in Darfur has been exaggerated and denies that the killing there amounts to genocide, as President Bush has said.

The president of the Save Darfur Coalition, Jerry Fowler, said the joint statement from the presidential candidates should serve as a warning to Mr. Bashir's government. "The tangible piece will be on Jan. 20, 2009," Mr. Fowler said, "when whichever one of these candidates wins the presidency and makes Darfur a Day 1 issue."

MOUNT RUSHMORE, S.D. (AP) - Hillary Rodham Clinton, her future far from carved in stone, paid a visit to the famed Mount Rushmore monument Wednesday.

Campaigning in South Dakota before the state's June 3 Democratic presidential primary, Clinton bundled up against chilly temperatures to walk through the monument and listen as a national park ranger described the history of the mountainside chiseled with the visages of Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt.

Trailing rival Barack Obama among delegates with just three primaries left in the calendar, Clinton has little chance of securing the nomination. Perhaps mindful of the odds, the former first lady carefully avoided questions about whether she or former President Clinton might be added to the monument one day.

"Why don't you go learn something about the monument?" she told reporters, laughing.

By Beth Fouhy, The Associated Press, May 28, 2008

The Democratic National Committee acted with "proper authority and jurisdiction" earlier this year when it stripped Michigan and Florida of all of their presidential convention delegates as punishment for scheduling their primaries before party rules allowed, a DNC staff analysis has concluded.

A 17-page memo outlining the findings was sent last night to the 30 members of the party's Rules and Bylaws Committee, who on Saturday will consider the two states' appeals of the sanctions. The finding repudiates at least one of the states' claims - that the committee overstepped its authority. And the report contains possible compromises that would seat only half the states' delegations. Hillary Clinton, in her last-ditch effort to remain a viable contender, has been fighting to have all of the states' delegates recognized.

In the analysis, staffers examined two compromise scenarios: One would allow the states to seat half of their delegates at the convention; the other would allow all delegates to be seated, but each would get a half vote. A statement released this afternoon by the DNC says the "staff analysis is intentionally neutral; it does not make specific recommendations. The analysis lays out a rules framework for each challenge, and the issues raised with each challenge."

But it is how those delegates could be divvied up between Clinton and Barack Obama that will have all eyes on the committee on Saturday.

Clinton and Obama pledged to boycott Michigan and Florida after the states were sanctioned for jumping the primary-season gun. Clinton won in Michigan, where her name appeared on the ballot but Obama's did not; and she also took Florida, where both candidates were on the ballot but neither campaigned. With no delegates at stake, those primaries were considered beauty contests.

But Clinton, though she endorsed the DNC sanctions at the time, now is agitating to have those delegates seated. Clinton has gone so far in recent days to liken the standoff to historic voting rights battles. Obama and his supporters don't want his primary success undermined by a committee decision that punishes him for accepting the DNC rules that existed at the time of the primaries.

In the memo to committee members, staffers, anticipating various efforts at compromise, delved into usually arcane delegate seating rules. In Michigan, for example, 40 percent of Democratic primary voters marked their ballots for "Uncommitted." What to do with those delegates? One consideration included in the staff analysis: Grant all of the Democrats who withdrew their names from the Michigan ballot, and that includes Obama, the right to pick delegates for the uncommitted slots.

"It is possible that these candidates," the analysis says, "could work out among themselves the mechanics of approving the persons to be considered for the 'Uncommitted' pledged delegate positions."

Florida is asking the committee to reinstate all of its superdelegates and has claimed that the committee did not have the authority to go beyond party rules that say states should automatically be stripped of half their delegates if they defy the party's primary schedule. The state wants 50 percent of its pledged delegation restored and allocated according to the state's January 29 primary results.

Committee members have said they expect to reach a compromise. But nobody is expecting everybody to be happy with the result.

By Liz Halloran, U.S. News & World Report, May 28, 2008

On Saturday, when the Rules Committee of the Democratic National Committee meets to determine the fate of Florida and Michigan's delegations to this summer's convention, it will have some company. A group of Hillary Clinton supporters has announced it will demonstrate outside.

As has been frequently noted, Sen. Ted Kennedy's much-publicized endorsement of Barack Obama paid little or no direct dividend a few days later in the Massachusetts Democratic presidential primary; Hillary Clinton easily carried the state on Super Tuesday back in February. One advantage she enjoyed -- mostly overlooked in the hoopla over Kennedy's nod -- was backing from longtime Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.

What Menino lacked as a national political figure he more than made up for by galvanizing a well-oiled political machine on Clinton's behalf, much as Govs. Ted Strickland of Ohio and Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania did on her behalf in primaries that followed.

An analysis by Lydia Saad at Gallup of Gallup Poll Daily trial heats for the general election over the past two weeks seems to re-affirm Sen. Hillary Clinton's argument that she is likelier to beat Sen. John McCain than is Sen. Barack Obama.

"Clinton is currently running ahead of McCain in the 20 states where she has prevailed in the popular vote," Saad writes, "while Obama is tied with McCain in those same states. Thus, at this stage in the race (before the general-election campaigns have fully engaged), there is some support for her argument that her primary states indicate she would be stronger than Obama in the general election.

"The same cannot be said for Obama in the 28 states and D.C. where he prevailed in the popular vote. As of now, in those states, he is performing no better than Clinton is in general-election trial heats versus McCain. Thus, the principle of greater primary strength translating into greater general-election strength -- while apparently operative for the states Clinton has won -- does not seem to apply at the moment to states Obama has won."

Are the Democrats about to nominate their weaker candidate? What say you?

By Jake Tapper, ABC News, May 28, 2008

Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign is edging closer to overtly making the argument that she -- and she alone -- can beat John McCain in the fall election.

"There is a difference between someone who could win and someone who will win," said Clinton senior strategist Howard Wolfson on a conference call with reporters earlier today. "That is an argument superdelegates can understand."

Clinton made a similar argument in a letter to superdelegates and reporters today. She writes:

"We simply cannot afford another four -- or eight -- years in the wilderness. That is why, everywhere I go, people come up to me, grip my hand or arm, and urge me to keep on running. That is why I continue in this race: because I believe I am best prepared to lead this country as President - and best prepared to put together a broad coalition of voters to break the lock Republicans have had on the electoral map and beat Senator McCain in November."

Wolfson pointed out that current Electoral College vote predictions -- based on an aggregate of public polling -- show Clinton beating McCain and Barack Obama losing to the Arizona senator.

Wolfson repeatedly noted that he was not saying that Obama could not win a general election, simply that polls show that he is currently trailing McCain.

That distinction is crucial to Clinton as she spends the final weeks of the campaign seemingly preparing for what comes next in her political life. (For the record, the Clinton team continues to insist she can still win; "We clearly believe there remains a path to the nomination and Senator Clinton is pursuing that path," said Wolfson.)

Any suggestion that Obama is unelectable by Clinton is likely to rebound negatively on her, as many party activists already suspect -- with little actual evidence, to be fair to the New York senator -- that she will seek to undercut the Democratic ticket in the fall if she is not on it.

But even if you take Clinton's argument at face value, there appears to be little evidence in the recent primaries that voters are primarily focused on electability as they choose between Obama and Clinton.

In Pennsylvania's April 22 primary, just nine percent of voters said that a candidate's ability to win in November was the most important factor in deciding their vote; among that small group, Clinton won 57 percent of the vote to 43 percent for Obama.

Subsequent primaries showed similar results. In West Virginia, nine percent cited electability as the most important attribute, and Clinton won the group by a wide 75 percent to 19 percent margin. In Kentucky, eight percent named electability; in Oregon it was 13 percent.

It is possible, of course, that superdelegates' mindset is radically different than that of voters. Remember, however, that many of the undecided superdelegates are elected officials and are not generally in the business of going against public opinion.

Clinton's case is a tough one to make -- and has been since mid-February. But she seems committed to making it.

By Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post, May 28, 2008

While Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama went back and forth about Iraq, Sen. Hillary Clinton largely avoided both of her opponents and traveled to Pablo, Mont., to "reaffirm her support for tribal sovereignty and her respect for the government to government relationship between the tribes of Montana and the federal government," according to a release provided by the campaign. Clinton's first campaign event of the day began at 6:30 p.m. ET in a picturesque setting admid trees and mountains

"We need a president next January, the obligation the United States government has to the tribes that represent the first peoples of the United States," Clinton said. "This is an issue that has been very important for me for years now."

After outlining what she wants to do for tribal leaders Clinton delivered her traditional stump speech with mild attacks against Obama about universal health care and the energy bill she didn't vote for, one she likes to call "Dick Cheney's" energy bill.

Clinton included a line she said in Rhode Island that inspired much attention.

"I am not one of those who comes to you and says elect me and the world will be better -- you'll hear celestial choirs life will improve -- I've lived long enough to know that's not what brings about change," she said. "What brings about change is hard work. Taking on the tough fights. Standing up for what you believe. And enlisting as many people as possible to do that for themselves."

Clinton also said that she thinks acupuncture should be included in the health care plan she will provide.

"I believe there are many treatments and remedies should be included in the universal health care plan and you mentioned one of them -- acupuncture," she said.

Clinton also revealed her Secret Service name, something she has never done before. Inspired by a sculpture before her in the very picturesque setting, Clinton said, "When you're president the Secret Service gives you and your family members code names and it's already been made public so I'm not spilling some big secret here, but my husband's code name was Eagle and my code name was Evergreen so I'm surrounded by my totems here."

By Eloise Harper, ABC News, May 27, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Hillary Clinton launched a new bid to wrest the Democratic nomination from front-runner Barack Obama Wednesday, arguing as their duel raced to a climax that she was the rightful victor and best potential president.

Clinton wrote to nearly 800 top party officials, or superdelegates, to try to persuade them that she was more likely to beat Republican candidate John McCain in November's election.

Her offensive came ahead of three closing primaries within the next six days, and despite Obama's lead in key metrics of the race -- proportionally allocated delegates, superdelegates, and nominating contests won.

"I believe I am best prepared to lead this country as president, and best prepared to put together a broad coalition of voters to break the lock Republicans have had on the electoral map and beat Senator McCain in November," Clinton wrote.

An accompanying 11-page memo laid out the case for Clinton, supported by maps of electoral scenarios and analyses of voter groups she has captured including women, working-class voters and Latinos.

"Hillary Clinton will finish the primary season with more votes, the lead in public opinion polls as to who is best able to turn the economy around, and be an effective commander in chief," the memo said.

Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe however said a simple tally of votes was immaterial.

"We do not think the popular vote is a true metric of the race -- it is about delegates," Plouffe said.

The new Clinton push came days ahead of Saturday's key meeting of a high-level Democratic Party committee to discuss a row over primaries in Michigan and Florida, which had their delegates stripped over a scheduling dispute.

The former first lady wants the full slate of delegates in the two states to be restored, so that she can argue that she has won most votes countrywide.

Other reported scenarios would see the two states losing at least half their delegations to punish them from moving their primary contests forward into January.

The Obama campaign said it was prepared to compromise, in a move that would likely net Clinton some delegates, but would allow Obama to claim the nomination and focus on McCain.

"We are willing to compromise, and I think that is where the party is," Plouffe told reporters.

"In both of these states, there is both a need and a hunger to focus on November."

Clinton won the primary in Michigan, where Obama took his name off the ballot, and also came first in Florida, where neither candidate campaigned.

According to a count by independent website RealClearPolitics, Obama is now just 48 delegates short of the winning post of 2,026 delegates needed to capture the nomination.

But the Clinton campaign says the true winning post is 2,210 delegates, including all those from Florida and Michigan.

Obama has recently been picking up superdelegate endorsements much quicker than Clinton, and now leads in that category by 319 to 282.

Fresh intrigue in the Democratic endgame came as explosive new revelations about President George W. Bush and Iraq exposed McCain to fresh scrutiny on the war.

Excerpts from a score-settling memoir by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan offered an opening to Obama, who opposed the war from the start.

McClellan wrote that the president was not "open and forthright" on Iraq and relied on propaganda to sell an unnecessary war.

The flap broke at an inopportune moment for McCain, just as he was enlisting the president's help in a series of fundraisers Tuesday and Wednesday.

McCain backs Bush's troop "surge" strategy in Iraq, and accuses Democrats of wanting to surrender there.

McCain policy advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer pointed out that the Arizona senator had challenged Bush and top military brass over early war strategy, and attacked the pace-setting Democrat.

"Obama's judgment has been shockingly ill-informed and he looks to be absolutely set on keeping it ill-informed," she told MSNBC.

But Obama strategist David Axelrod said McCain was unwilling to face the "reality" of the situation in Iraq.

"It's not the troops who are responsible for this disaster," Axelrod told MSNBC.

"It's the policymakers, and we have to change the policy."

AFP, May 28, 2008

The nearly 800 Democratic superdelegates are free to support any candidate and are free to change their mind at any time, as many times as they want.

In the ABC News delegate estimate, about a dozen unpledged "superdelegates" have switched their support from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama, but until tonight none had switched from Obama to Clinton.

Kevin Rodriquez, a superdelegate from the Virgin Islands, was supporting Clinton earlier this year, then switched to Obama and, according to the Clinton campaign tonight, is now back in the New York senator's corner.

The Clinton campaign announced in a press release that Rodriquez was backing Hillary Clinton but did not provide a statement from Rodriquez.

On May 10, Rodriquez, an African-American Democratic committeeman and the director of personnel for the Virgin Islands government, announced that he was switching his support from Clinton to Obama, citing the Illinois senator's judgment, courage and energy.

"While I have great respect for Senator Clinton, today I am announcing my support for Barack Obama," Rodriquez said in a statement released by the Obama campaign on May 10. "Senator Obama has brought a new generation and energy into the democratic process and the Democratic Party. He has shown he can connect with Democrats, Republicans and Independents across this country, whether we live on the mainland or an island.

"Senator Obama's judgment to lead, courage to tell the truth and commitment to working men and women make him the best candidate to lead this country forward."

Just three months earlier, Rodriquez was in Clinton's corner.

Obama went on a 10-contest winning streak in February, including the Virgin Islands caucuses on Feb. 9. On Feb. 18, Rodriquez told The St. Croix Source that he was supporting Clinton because "she's a better candidate."

"I'm very proud of Barack Obama. I think he's doing a great job," Rodriquez said. "I'm honored as an African-American to have him in the position he is in, but I feel Hillary is still the better candidate to lead the party to victory in November."

By Karen Travers, ABC News, May 27, 2008

Sen. Hillary Clinton's Memorial Day service came at the end of the day today. Clinton stood at an official ceremony outside the capitol building in San Juan, Puerto Rico. By her side stood her daughter Chelsea and her husband the former president. Clinton's entire message was focused on the need to give Puerto Ricans the right to vote, especially in light of the service they provide and have provided to our country.

"It is a day to cherish freedoms and opportunities that so many have sacrificed fought for and died to defend," she said. "As we are gathered here in front of this magnificent capitol building, we look at this memorial monument, every single name reminds us of the sacrifices that have been made by the brave men and women of Puerto Rico."

Clinton defended the people of this island and their justification of having a right to vote.

"To anyone who would suggest that the people of Puerto Rico do not deserve equal treatment, equal benefits, equal opportunities because of their position as United States citizens, I say come see this monument, read the names on this monument," she said.. "These are the names of fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters who have given, as President Lincoln described, the last full measure of devotion.

"Puerto Rico deserves to have its sacrifice noted," she said. "You deserve to have leadership in Washington that respects and honors this sacrifice and all who serve. The real test is not what we say but what we do. The real challenge is how we can not just make speeches that contain promise, but deliver on those promises. It is for me a sacred obligation.

"I believe it is long past time that we give the people of Puerto Rico, United States citizens all, an equal voice in the vote for the commander in chief who sends young Puerto Ricans to war," the New York senator said.

The tone and demeanor of this event was much more serious and somber than that of events Clinton held earlier in the day in Ponce, P.R., where she was greeted by a loud band that shouted "Hillary! Hillary!" over and over. At that same event, Clinton uttered a little Spanish, saying, "si podemos!" a thing she rarely does. The senator also met with two families who she listened to and laughed with as they shared stories.

By Eloise Harper, ABC News, May 26, 2008

WASHINGTON - When Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton told The Argus Leader of Sioux Falls, S.D., last week that efforts to "push" her out of the race before all the nominating contests were over was "unprecedented," she offered a few historical references to support her argument.

The news media's attention focused on Mrs. Clinton's invocation of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy after the California primary in June 1968. But she also cited the 1992 contest that ended with Bill Clinton's nomination.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary," Mrs. Clinton told the paper's editorial board, "somewhere in the middle of June."

But for weeks before that June 2 contest, few doubted that Mr. Clinton would be the party's nominee, including those involved with the campaign of his remaining challenger, former Gov. Jerry Brown of California.

"Even if it wasn't technically finished, it was clear to everybody involved that it was over well before June," Steve McMahon, a media strategist for Mr. Brown in the 1992 race, said Monday in an interview.

The contest between Mrs. Clinton, of New York, and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois is hardly as clear cut. While he appears to have an unsurpassable lead in pledged delegates, she is hoping to draw the support of elected Democratic officials and party leaders - superdelegates - who will also help choose the party's nominee.

She continues to win primaries in populous states like Indiana and Pennsylvania and hopes to add up enough of the overall popular vote to make a case to superdelegates that she is better positioned to be the nominee.

Howard Wolfson, a strategist for Mrs. Clinton, also pointed out on Monday that some had called for her to leave the race early in the process.

"Senator Obama's supporters in the media began calling on Senator Clinton to drop out as early as February," Mr. Wolfson said. "This is one of the closest nominating contests in American history, and the constant calls for Senator Clinton to quit are unwarranted and inappropriate."

Yet the Clinton campaign in 1992 used some of the same tactics that Mrs. Clinton and her supporters now decry, like declaring the nomination secure early and encouraging party leaders and the news media to climb on board.

In the weeks before the California primary that year, much of the attention was already focused on the general election, with Mr. Clinton treated as the presumed Democratic nominee challenging President George Bush. Sights were set on November, with speculation about how Ross Perot, a well-financed independent candidate, would affect the prospects of the two men.

Recalling the race on The Huffington Post over the weekend, William Bradley, a California political strategist-turned-writer, said he had personally delivered a message to the Clinton campaign before the California primary that Mr. Brown "would run no TV ads in the California primary and would pull back from the sharp attacks," in recognition of Mr. Clinton's strength.

In fact, the race had for all intents and purposes ended weeks earlier, on April 7 in New York, when Mr. Brown made something of a last stand. It was ultimately a bust: He came in third, behind Mr. Clinton and the second-place finisher, Senator Paul E. Tsongas of Massachusetts, who had suspended his campaign weeks earlier.

That night, George Stephanopoulos, who was then a top aide to Mr. Clinton, declared that it was "mathematically impossible for Brown to get the nomination" - the start of a campaign to declare Mr. Clinton the presumed nominee, even as several other major primaries loomed.

"So, lightning would have to strike," Mr. Stephanopoulos, now with ABC News, said at the time, a phrase he repeated last week to describe Mrs. Clinton's chances against Mr. Obama.

Mr. Clinton soon made a victorious visit to Capitol Hill, where he began trying to rally to his side the party leaders with automatic convention seats known as superdelegates.

And party members reported an effort by Clinton allies and ranking party officials to pressure uncommitted superdelegates to line up behind Mr. Clinton, a strategy he decried this past weekend when he accused "them" of bullying superdelegates early to choose sides between Mr. Obama and his wife.

"There's this frantic effort to push her out," he said, adding, "I've never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running."

In 1992 Mr. Clinton's strategy drew some support for his candidacy, including former Representative Don Edwards of California, who said on the day of Mr. Clinton's Capitol Hill visit, "He's going to be the nominee, so good Democrats are getting on board."

The message was also shared with the news media, with Ronald H. Brown, the party chairman and Mr. Clinton's close friend, telling The New York Times that April, "I cannot imagine a set of circumstances that would keep Bill Clinton from having a majority of the delegates by the end of the primary season."

Mr. Clinton was also discussing his vice-presidential considerations, telling a student that April that "a lot of presidents have got in trouble in past years because they picked too many people who were just like them."

In one way, though, Mr. Clinton's clinching of his party's nomination was later in the primary calendar than will probably occur in 2008. The Democratic convention that year was in July, a month after the contests ended; this year it is not until the last week of August, almost three months after the last states vote.

Clinton In Puerto Rico, Where She Is Favored To Win; Obama Tells Vets In N.M. "I Will Not Let You Down"

Sen. Hillary Clinton ended a three-day campaign swing across Puerto Rico the same way many Americans mark Memorial Day - with family, friends and a salute to the sacrifices of military men and women.

Clinton, who is trying despite the odds against her to catch up to Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, visited with Laura Santiago Suarez and Carlos Rivera Figueroa. Residents of a public housing project in Bayamon, the couple talked about their 21-year-old son, Jonathan, a soldier awaiting redeployment for another tour in Iraq.

Sitting in the living room of their apartment, Clinton said that once she is president she will end the war so "you will not have to worry about him going back to Iraq." She also talked about the high cost of electricity and gas in Puerto Rico, and said she wanted to see the island use solar and wind energy.

Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Clinton, also reunited with a family that received federal aid after Hurricane Georges in 1998. As first lady, Hillary Clinton had visited them to see how the storm affected Puerto Ricans.

It is the Clintons' long history with Puerto Rico - and Hispanic voters in general - that gives Clinton a decided edge in the island's presidential primary on June 1, not to mention that her home state of New York has approximately 1 million Puerto Ricans.

But Clinton needs something approaching a mathematical miracle to catch Obama in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Puerto Rico has 55 delegates at stake in its primary, but Obama had a total of 1,969 to Clinton's 1,774, according to the latest CBS News tally. He was just 57 delegates short of the 2,026 needed to clinch the nomination.

"Hillary Clinton has a slight, a very slight chance to win, but almost negligible at this point," said David Mark, senior editor of Politico.com.

It's practically zip because under no circumstances do the numbers add up in her favor, reports CBS News correspondent Thalia Assuras. So the Clinton campaign is appealing to superdelegates who don't vote until the convention.

As Clinton wrapped up her Puerto Rican swing, Obama marked Memorial Day in New Mexico, a battleground state in the general election.

Obama told a group of veterans that he cannot know what it's like to walk into battle or lose a child in combat, since he has experienced neither, but he said he is committed to strengthening the military and improving veterans' services.

"As president of the United States, I will not let you down," he promised.

Obama said President Bush is asking the troops to do too much with too little, such as interacting with civilians without the necessary translators and handling nation-building tasks that could be done by the State Department and other agencies.

"We're asking them to be teachers, social workers, engineers, diplomats. That's not what they're trained to do," the Illinois senator said during a town hall-style meeting at the Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces.

Heavy use of private contractors, such as Blackwater, also hurts troops, Obama said. Contractors are paid many times what U.S. personnel make, but they aren't subject to the same rules and their misconduct inflames anti-American sentiment, he said. And when troops return home, the Bush administration doesn't do enough to help those suffering from combat stress or to help them get civilian jobs, Obama said.

After his town hall event, Obama and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson laid wreaths at a memorial to the state's fallen soldiers. The wind knocked over the wreaths, scattering the flowers, and Obama and Richardson propped the wreaths against the monument and gathered the stray flowers.

They shook hands with onlookers, including a color guard of veterans, and Obama thanked them for their service.

In Puerto Rico, Clinton also spoke at a rally of union members from AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

"Puerto Rico should support Hillary because she understands you better," Bill Clinton told the crowd. The former president and the couple's daughter, Chelsea, will remain in Puerto Rico while Hillary Clinton heads to South Dakota and Montana, which hold the final primaries a week from Tuesday.

She ended her trip in San Juan at a ceremony to add names to a dark marble monument for Puerto Ricans who died fighting in the U.S. military.

The memorial, she told the crowd, shows why Puerto Ricans should be allowed a greater voice in the U.S. government. Puerto Ricans cannot vote in the general election for president.

"That is an injustice and an insult to the thousands and thousands of Puerto Ricans who have served America with heroism and honor," Clinton said.

Not all Puerto Ricans were happy with Clinton's visit.

Jorge Pedroza, president of the Council of Vietnam Veterans of Puerto Rico, said he was upset that she waited until the third day of her campaign swing to meet with veterans. He noted that Obama's first stop during his appearance Saturday was to visit with veterans.

"If she's here honoring the dead, what about the living?" Pedroza said.




The Associated Press, May 26, 2008

The end of both Clintonism and its opposite -- Kennedy-style liberalism -- draws closer.

The sun-dappled image from August 1997 shimmers in memory. The two great Democratic political dynasties had set sail on carefree waters. Aboard the Mya as the schooner maneuvered its way out of Menemsha Harbor on Martha's Vineyard were the reigning Clintons and the radiant Kennedys. The news photographs, which mesh with my memory, show the president and the ruddy white-haired Massachusetts senator, along with a waving Hillary Clinton and the extended Kennedy clan, including Rep. Patrick Kennedy and daughter-of-Camelot Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg.

Last week, 11 years after that in-happier-times snapshot, the curtain began to descend on the Kennedys and Clintons alike. Before the wrenching news of a brain tumor, there had always seemed something eternal about Ted Kennedy: the survivor, the eternal-flame keeper of the dream that never died, the last active link to the heady days of can-do 1960s liberalism.

Each day brings Hillary Clinton closer to publicly acknowledging that her own presidential ambitions are over or, at least, redeposited in a safe-deposit box with a long lease. Certainly, her maladroit comment last week about Bobby Kennedy's assassination -- even if it was wrenched out of context in a take-no-prisoners media environment -- may well have been her presidential swan song. At the same time, her husband, the baffled 42nd president, is struggling with his new role as "Over-the-Hill Bill." In an interview with People magazine, Bill Clinton admitted that he can no longer be trusted to speak "late at night" when he is "tired or angry" without issuing himself "Miranda warnings."

The Clintons and the Kennedys were on separate trajectories long before Teddy and most of his family blessed the presidential ambitions of Barack Obama. Like comets with elongated orbits, the two families would periodically intersect (a teenage Boys State president from Arkansas shaking JFK's hand at the White House) and forge fruitful political alliances as they did during the 1990s. But even though they could dominate rooms and domesticate political enemies, the 76-year-old patriarch of the Senate and the 61-year-old former president are, at their core, as different as Hyannisport, Mass., and Hope, Ark.

Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton (more than Hillary) represent the two ends of the Democratic practical-politics spectrum. When Kennedy, unbowed in defeat, spoke to the 1980 Democratic Convention, he boldly declared, "I will continue to stand for a national health insurance ... Let us resolve that the state of a family's health shall never depend on the size of the nation's wealth." At the height of his greatest triumph, his smashing 1996 reelection victory over Bob Dole by 8 million votes, Bill Clinton devoted exactly two words to "health care" in his second inaugural address. With Newt Gingrich neutered and Monica Lewinsky still unknown, Clinton instead opted for poll-tested banalities like prattling about "personal responsibility" and proclaiming, "Government is not the problem and government is not the solution."

Actually, the leader most responsible for reshaping Democratic politics after Vietnam may well have been Ronald Reagan. Clinton's entire presidency can be seen as an effort to take off the table most of the issues that Reagan used as cudgels against the Democrats -- welfare, crime, permissiveness, budget deficits and big government. Once the healthcare reform debacle and the 1994 elections prompted Clinton to stop thinking about tomorrow and start brooding about yesterday, his cautious centrist approach to governing was mostly about building a bridge to the next election. Hillary Clinton (aside from her poll-propelled pander on the gasoline tax) has pointedly rejected triangulation on domestic issues during this campaign, more than matching Obama on any liberal policy grid.

During the Reagan years, Kennedy -- out of necessity -- mastered the art of bipartisan compromise. His olive-branch legislative style led to missteps like his credulous support for George W. Bush's all-the-funding-left-behind 2001 education bill. But Kennedy also deserves credit for his role in the 2004 passage of the prescription-drug bill -- the biggest (and, to be honest, as yet unfunded) expansion of the social safety net since Medicare.

It was in response to Reagan's mantra that "the Democrats are weak on national security" where Kennedy parted company with the Clintons (yes, here we are definitely including Hillary). Maybe having experienced the hair-trigger moments of his brother's nuclear confrontation with Nikita Khrushchev over missiles in Cuba gave Kennedy the self-confidence to challenge the Bush family's portrayal of Saddam Hussein as Adolf Hitler Redux. About the only argument that can be mustered in defense of Hillary Clinton's 2002 vote (presumably influenced by Bill's counsel) to permit the war in Iraq is that the entire feckless wing of the Democratic Party joined in this march of folly toward Baghdad.

For more than three decades, Ted Kennedy has been a living refutation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's maxim about "no second acts in American life." Ridiculed as the president's dim-bulb youngest brother when he was handed a gift-wrapped Senate seat for his 30th birthday in 1962, and then reviled for his conduct on a tragic night at Chappaquiddick, Kennedy took an idiosyncratic path to becoming a senator worthy of a Capitol Hill legislative office building someday being named in his honor.

Hillary Clinton will probably not take her defiance-of-reality fight all the way to the Democratic Convention, as Kennedy did in his scorched-earth struggle against Jimmy Carter in 1980. But she will soon face a similar second-act career dilemma. Will the next four or eight years merely be a holding action as she plots a final assault on the White House? Will she stalk a would-be President Obama much as Kennedy shadowed Carter? Or will she follow Kennedy's later and wiser example by deciding that her ambitions can be sated by waging the good fight in the Senate -- a body where the current majority leader, Harry Reid, is not exactly the stuff of Statuary Hall.

Last week, quickly denied rumors bubbled up from the underground springs of premature vice-presidential gossip claiming that the Obama and Clinton camps were in talks over the heartbeat-away job. In truth, since John Kennedy tapped Lyndon Johnson at the 1960 Democratic Convention, only two vice-presidential selections (George Bush in 1980 and John Edwards in 2004) have been the runners-up for the presidential nomination. An Obama-Clinton ticket certainly still could be engineered, but the loyalty oaths needed to ratify such an alliance would be more rigorous than those required by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

But beyond uneasy personal relationships, Obama may regard the Clintons as a historical artifact of the 1990s. True, Obama has managed to survive primaries and caucuses in 48 states without ever revealing how much of his political philosophy is Clintonian moderation and how much is Kennedy-esque liberalism. When it comes to middle-class tax cuts and a no-mandates healthcare plan, Obama cleaves to safe centrism. On Iraq and other foreign policy issues, Obama is bolder and more inspirational. But maybe the real Obama difference is that -- unlike Ted Kennedy and both the Clintons -- the 46-year-old all but certain nominee is the first true post-Reagan Democrat.

By Walter Shapiro, Salon, May 27, 2008

If this campaign goes on much longer, what will be left of Hillary Clinton?

My first thought on the running mate question is that to balance his ticket, Barack Obama should pick a really old white general. Therefore, he should pick Dwight Eisenhower. John McCain, on the other hand, needs to pick someone younger than himself. Therefore, he also should pick Dwight Eisenhower.

My second thought is that most of the commentary on vice president picks is completely backward. Most discussion focuses on what state or constituency this or that running mate could help carry in the fall. But, as a rule, recent vice presidential nominees haven't had any effect on key states or constituencies. They haven't had much effect on elections at all, except occasionally as hapless distractions.

A vice president can, however, have a gigantic impact on an administration once in office (see: Cheney, Richard). Therefore, a sensible presidential candidate shouldn't be selecting a mate on the basis of who can help him get elected. He should be thinking about who can help him govern successfully so he can get re-elected.

That means asking: What circumstances will I face when I take office? What tasks will I need my chief subordinate to perform to help me face those circumstances?

If Barack Obama is elected, his chief challenge will be that he hopes to usher in a new style of politics, but he has no real strategy for how to do that.

He will find himself surrounded by highly partisan Democratic politicians, committee chairmen and interest groups thrilled to finally seize power. Some of them might have enjoyed his lofty rhetoric about change, but in practice, these organization types have no interest in changing politics. They just want to take the money and patronage that has been going to Republican special interests and give it to Democratic special interests.

These entrenched Democrats are more experienced than Obama. They know how to play the game better. The effect of their efforts will be to turn his into a Potemkin administration filled with great speeches but without great accomplishments or influence over legislation.

Obama will need a vice president who knows the millions of ways that power is exercised and subverted in Washington. He'll need someone who can be a senior, authoritative presence in a cabinet that may range from Republican Senator Chuck Hagel to the labor leader Andy Stern. He'll need someone who can supervise his young reformers and build transpartisan coalitions more effectively than Obama has as senator.

Sam Nunn and Tom Daschle seem to fit the bill. Nunn is one of those senior Democrats (like David Boren and Bob Kerrey) who left the Senate lamenting the dumbed-down nature of modern politics. Daschle was more partisan as majority leader, but he is still widely trusted and universally liked. As experienced legislators, both could take Obama's lofty hopes and translate them into nitty-gritty action.

If John McCain is elected, he'll face a political culture threatening to split at the seams. In defeat, Democrats will be enraged at everything and everybody. The Republican Party will still be exhausted and divided. McCain will find it hard to staff the administration since so many Republican advisers were exhausted over the previous eight years.

Amid these centrifugal forces, McCain will need somebody who radiates calm. He'll need somebody who can provide structure and organization. He'll need somebody who enjoys working with budgets.

With the Democrats controlling Congress, McCain will have no chance of winning big, ideological fights. He will need someone who can help him de-ideologize the climate, who can emphasize making things work rather than fighting philosophical battles.

McCain seems to be looking at business leaders like Meg Whitman. But among politicos, the shining stars would seem to be Rob Portman and Tim Pawlenty. Portman is an Ohioan with the mind of a budget director and a mild temperament that is a credit to his Midwestern roots. His resume is ideal: He directed legislative affairs for the first President Bush, served in Congress for more than a decade and managed the Office of Management and Budget under Bush the younger. He excelled in every role.

Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota, is one of the G.O.P.'s leading and most likable modernizers. The son of a truck driver (his mother died when he was 16), he is the godfather of Sam's Club conservatism, the effort to reconnect the party to the needs of the working class. Pawlenty could help McCain play the Theodore Roosevelt-style role - reforming the nation's institutions to fit a new century and epoch.

Both presidential candidates are surrounded by campaign advisers, campaign coverage and campaign frenzy. But the vice presidential pick is not really a campaign decision. It's the first governing decision - and a way to see who is thinking seriously about how to succeed in the White House.

By David Brooks, The New York Times, May 27, 2008

In August 1980, with no hope left of winning the nomination, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy conceded defeat to incumbent Jimmy Carter in the Democratic presidential race.

"For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end," Kennedy said at the Democratic National Convention in New York. "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

And with that, at age 48, Kennedy returned to the Senate, where he committed himself to a career as a legislator, crafting landmark bills on health care, education and immigration. Many Democrats are now pointing to the Kennedy model as a path for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to reshape her own political career, assuming she is unable to wrest the nomination from Sen. Barack Obama.

"I loved the Senate before I ran for the president," Kennedy explained in an interview before his recent cancer diagnosis. Losing to Carter, he said, made him appreciate the opportunities in Congress all the more. "I think I became a better senator, with greater focus and attention," Kennedy said. But he added: "It all depends on the attitude, what's in the mind of the person."

Clinton, Kennedy continued, must decide where her heart lies. "She's got great capacity -- she was a good senator before, and she can be a great senator in the future," he said. The question, he said, is "what she does with this experience."

When Kennedy returned to Capitol Hill before the 1980 election, the Massachusetts Democrat was in a similar fix. Like Clinton, he was the heir to a powerful political legacy. But the climate was volatile, and voters were in the mood for change. Kennedy was rejected by many of his Senate colleagues, despite Carter's sagging popularity, and he won just 10 primary states. But like Clinton, he hung on until the bitter end.

Yet Kennedy was an 18-year Senate veteran who had already risen to chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a health subcommittee. Clinton faces few options for quick advancement should she give up her presidential bid, prompting some to speculate that she may look elsewhere for a prominent political post, possibly the governorship of New York.

The climate on Capitol Hill has changed considerably in the 18 months since Clinton began her presidential campaign. The Senate leadership path that she had once viewed as a viable alternative is now all but blocked. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) has gained clout in his role, and he will grow even more powerful if Democrats succeed in expanding their narrow majority in November by up to half a dozen seats.

Reid's deputies, Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) and Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), also have enhanced their status in recent months and are quietly laying the groundwork to succeed Reid whenever he decides to step down.

"Within the caucus, there's strong support for Senator Reid, and those who speculate otherwise don't understand the Senate," said Durbin, who was the first senator to endorse Obama. When Clinton returns to her old job, assuming she does not win the nomination, Durbin added, "she will be an important part of the future. But I can't tell you that anyone has approached me, or anyone in the caucus, with any specific suggestions about what she would do."

When Clinton announced her bid in January 2007, she was the prohibitive favorite, and most of her Senate colleagues appeared ready to rally to her side. But as her primary battle with Obama draws to an end, with the senator from Illinois almost certain to emerge the victor, Clinton has discovered that the reservoir of Senate goodwill was not so deep after all.

(CNN) -- Former President Bill Clinton said that Democrats were more likely to lose in November if Hillary Clinton is not the nominee, and suggested some were trying to "push and pressure and bully" superdelegates to make up their minds prematurely.

"I can't believe it. It is just frantic the way they are trying to push and pressure and bully all these superdelegates to come out," Clinton said at a South Dakota campaign stop Sunday, in remarks first reported by ABC News.

Clinton also suggested some were trying to "cover up" Sen. Clinton's chances of winning in key states that Democrats will have to win in the general election.

" 'Oh, this is so terrible: The people they want her. Oh, this is so terrible: She is winning the general election, and he is not. Oh my goodness, we have to cover this up.' "

Clinton did not expound on who he was accusing.

The former president added that his wife had not been given the respect she deserved as a legitimate presidential candidate.

"She is winning the general election today and he is not, according to all the evidence," Clinton said. "And I have never seen anything like it. I have never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running."

"Her only position was, 'Look, if I lose I'll be a good team player. We will all try to win, but let's let everybody vote, and count every vote,' " he said.

The former president suggested that if the New York senator ended the primary season with an edge in the popular vote, it would be a significant development.

"If you vote for her and she does well in Montana and she does well in Puerto Rico, when this is over she will be ahead in the popular vote," Clinton said.

"And they're trying to get her to cry uncle before the Democratic Party has to decide what to do in Florida and Michigan," which Clinton said the party would need to do "unless we want to lose the election."

The current requirement to claim the Democratic presidential nomination is 2,026 delegates, a formula that does not take into account delegates from Florida and Michigan, whose contests were not sanctioned by the party because they moved them up earlier on the primary calendar.

But if those votes were counted as cast, Hillary Clinton would still trail rival Barack Obama in the overall delegate count.

The former president said Sunday that the media had unfairly attacked his wife