Clinton May Challenge Party's Delegate Math
Final primary votes to be cast as superdelegate support becomes key to victory.
June 2, 2008 — -- Democratic Party leaders are predicting that the presidential slugfest between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will end this week, possibly as early as Wednesday.
Ostensibly, Clinton had a good weekend, drubbing Obama in Puerto Rico's primary with a landslide win and watching Obama quit the Chicago church he once called his spiritual home but which had become the source of repeated political embarrassments as preachers spewed inflammatory racial rhetoric from its pulpit.
But the landslide and the backslide did little to slow Obama's march to becoming the nation's first African-American to win a major party presidential nomination.
Clinton Continues Fight, but Some Supporters Signal End
Even Iowa's Gov. Tom Vilsak, co-chairman of Clinton's presidential campaign, said the end is near.
"It does appear to be pretty clear that Sen. Obama is going to be the nominee," he told The Associated Press. "After Tuesday's contests, she needs to acknowledge that he's going to be the nominee and quickly get behind him."
Tuesday poll workers will tabulate the last two Democratic primaries as Montana and South Dakota vote, ending a grueling slog across the country that began in the snows of Iowa last year. Obama is favored to win those two states and, with the voting finally over, many of the 200 uncommitted superdelegates are expected to make their choices public.
By ABC News' calculation, Obama needs 47.5 more delegates to reach what the Democratic National Committee has ruled is the magic number of 2,118 delegates to wrap up the nomination.
"There are some signs now that the teams are starting to come together," ABC News' chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos told "Good Morning America."
"Last night Barack Obama called Hillary Clinton to congratulate her on her win in Puerto Rico. About a 2½-minute phone conversation. For them, it's a lot these days. He praised her and said no one knows how hard you're working as much as I do. That's a start," Stephanopoulos reported.
"I am expecting sometime this week you will see a very gracious speech from Sen. Clinton, likely Wednesday," Stephanopoulos said.
The Final Push
Clinton is still looking for a way to pull out a last-minute victory, possibly by challenging the party's math.
Clinton suggested she may challenge the Democratic National Committee's new "magic number" of delegates needed to secure the Democratic presidential nomination — 2,118 — since it does not factor Florida and Michigan delegates as full voting representatives.
"We reserve the right to do so but haven't made a decision," she told reporters on her campaign plane Sunday night. "We'll get to that in due time to consider whether we will or not."
Clinton is also trying to convince superdelegates who have already announced for Obama to change their minds, arguing that she has shown herself to be the stronger candidate in the general election and, by her calculations, has won a majority of the popular vote.
A new TV ad she's running makes that claim, though her math includes undercounting the true number of participants in caucuses and gives Obama zero votes from Michigan. In short, it is a highly debatable figure in terms of the true number of participants in the Democratic primaries and caucuses.
Kevin Rodriguez, a superdelegate from the Virgin Islands who has wavered between Clinton and Obama, got a ride on Clinton's plane Sunday to South Dakota, where she plans to campaign Monday.
When speaking to reporters, Clinton said Rodriguez was "a superdelegate that went from me to Sen. Obama and now is back with me in the course of, you know, a matter of weeks."
"This has been such an intense process I don't think there has been a lot of time for reflection," she said. "It's only now that we're finishing these contests that people are going to actually reflect on who is our stronger candidate."
Donna Brazile, a Democratic superdelegate and an ABC News consultant, told "GMA" that the Montana and South Dakota primaries should end Clinton's diehard challenge.
"This is not about fighting until the bitter end," Brazile said. "It's about fighting until the end, and that's tomorrow night."
ABC's Eloise Harper contributed to this report.