Clinton to end historic candidacy
WASHINGTON (AP) - June 4, 2008 Hours after Barack Obama sealed the nomination, Democrats
coalesced around his candidacy, sending a strong signal to Clinton
that it was time to bow out. The former first lady told House
Democrats during a private conference call Wednesday that she will
express support for Obama's candidacy and congratulate him for
gathering the necessary delegates to be the party's nominee.
"Senator Clinton will be hosting an event in Washington, D.C.,
to thank her supporters and express her support for Senator Obama
and party unity. This event will be held on Saturday to accommodate
more of Senator Clinton's supporters who want to attend," her
communications director Howard Wolfson said.
Also in the speech, Clinton will urge once-warring Democrats to
focus on the general election and defeating Republican presidential
candidate John McCain.
The only degree of uncertainty was how. Clinton is exploring
options to retain her delegates and promote her issues, including a
signature call for universal health care.
The announcement closed an epic five-month nominating battle
pitting the first serious female candidate against the most viable
black contender ever.
Obama Tuesday night secured the 2,118 delegates to claim the
Democratic nomination, but Clinton stopped short of acknowledging
that milestone. Instead, she was defiant, insisting she was better
positioned than Obama to defeat McCain in November.
"What does Hillary want? What does she want?" Clinton said,
hours after telling supporters she'd be open to joining Obama as
his vice-presidential running mate.
But by Wednesday, other Democrats made it abundantly clear they
wanted something, too: a swift end to the nominating contest.
Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean and the Democratic
congressional leadership released a statement urging the party to
rally behind Obama, and several lawmakers including Iowa Sen. Tom
Harkin, Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar and Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu
all endorsed their Illinois colleague.
Obama also announced he had named a three-person vetting team
that included Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late President John
F. Kennedy.
An adviser said Clinton and her lieutenants had discussed
various ways a presidential candidacy can end, including suspending
the campaign to retain control of her convention delegates and
sustain her visibility in an effort to promote her signature issue
of health care. This adviser spoke on condition of anonymity
because officials were not authorized to discuss the conference
call Clinton held with her congressional supporters.
Other options include freeing her delegates to back Obama and
ending her candidacy unconditionally. The official stressed that
neither Clinton nor her inner circle had decided specifically what
course to take other than to recognize that the active state of her
bid to become the nation's first female president had ended.
On the telephone call with impatient congressional supporters
including New York Rep. Charles Rangel, a longtime political
patron, Clinton was urged to draw a close to the contentious
campaign, or at least express support for Obama. Her decision to
acquiesce caught many in the campaign by surprise and left the
campaign scrambling to finalize the logistics and specifics behind
her campaign departure.
It was an inauspicious end for a candidacy that appeared
indestructible when it began 17 months ago.
Armed with celebrity, a prodigious fundraising Rolodex, a
battle-tested campaign team and a popular two-term former president
as a husband, many observers believed Clinton's victory in the
Democratic nomination contest was a sure thing.
But in Obama, the New York senator faced an opponent who
appeared perfectly suited to the time - a charismatic newcomer who
opposed the Iraq war from the beginning and who offered voters a
compelling message of change. Clinton voted for the legislation
that authorized military force against Iraq.
After a disastrous showing in the leadoff Iowa caucuses Jan. 3,
Clinton won New Hampshire's primary Jan. 8, setting off the
state-by-state war of attrition with Obama that followed.
Her fortunes rose and fell like a fever chart: She was up in
Nevada, down in South Carolina. Then, after a roughly even finish
on Super Tuesday Feb. 5, she suffered a string of unanswered losses
that, almost before Clinton noticed, put Obama so far ahead in the
delegate hunt that all the big-state victories she piled up
couldn't close the delegate gap.
By March, her options limited, Clinton adopted the persona of a
tenacious fighter for the middle class, and powered successfully
through primaries in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, West
Virginia and Kentucky, showing grit that earned her valuable
political currency.
White men, blue-collar workers, socially conservative Democrats
and older women were especially receptive to her message, and her
strong showing with those voters exposed Obama's vulnerabilities
among those groups.
Democrats whose No. 1 concern had been ending the Iraq war at
the campaign's outset, started worrying more about the economy.
That was a switch from Obama's strength to hers.