Democrat Barack Obama edged towards becoming the first black presidential nominee in US history Tuesday, but Hillary Clinton's camp denied reports she was about to fold her campaign.
Voters in the last two states, Montana and South Dakota, closed out a historic and often bitter coast-to-coast nomination duel, as the Democratic Party coalesced around its all but certain 2008 general election champion.
With Obama apparently poised for victory, reports surfaced that Clinton was ready to admit defeat and acknowledge Obama had the nomination secured, at a "celebration" rally on Tuesday night.
But her campaign issued a statement denying the reports, and several close aides vehemently pushed back against the idea that she would quit.
"Senator Clinton will not concede the nomination this evening," a statement from the Clinton campaign read, saying reports that she would do were wrong.
"Not true," another aide said, on condition of anonymity, when asked whether she would throw in the towel.
Obama's team meanwhile nudged superdelegates -- top party insiders -- to jump on his bandwagon, so he would reach the magic number of 2,118 delegates and set off a raucous victory rally in Minnesota later Tuesday.
Even Clinton's most upbeat cheerleader, campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe admitted that if the mathematics favored Obama, there was little she could do.
"If Senator Obama gets the number, I think Hillary Clinton will congratulate him, call him the nominee," he told NBC.
"She has given her heart and soul to this campaign. We'll go through today. Let's see where the numbers are," he said.
While an expected flood of superdelegates towards Obama had yet to materialize, there were whispers in Congress that lawmakers may move once polls close in South Dakota and Montana.
James Clyburn, an influential African-American leader and a giant in Congress, endorsed Obama early Tuesday and urged other unpledged superdelegates to make their choices known.
"Today, the process ends. And I hope that enough of us will announce our intentions today so that this evening our candidate, our nominee, presumptive nominee, will be able to credit the voters of this country with having achieved a threshold of 2,118," the South Carolina representative told NBC television.
By late morning, Obama was fewer than 40 delegates short of the nomination. Thirty-one delegates are up for grabs in South Dakota and Montana, and he was expected to win just over half of them.
Regardless, Illinois Senator Obama, 46, planned to train his full fire on potential general election rival John McCain, with a daring foray into the same Minnesota sports arena where Republicans will crown their nominee in September.
Clinton was to appear in her home state of New York, prompting speculation she might step aside at a "celebration" event in Manhattan on Tuesday night.
Obama, the former community organizer who has scaled the heights of US politics after just three years in the Senate, already had an eye on healing his party after a nominating duel which cleaved it down the middle.
He divulged some of the content of his congratulatory telephone call to the former first lady after her thumping win in the Puerto Rico primary on Sunday, which boosted her morale but could not dent his control of the race.
"I emphasized to her what an extraordinary race that she's run," Obama told reporters in Michigan Monday.
At a rally in South Dakota, the former first lady said she would focus on winning over superdelegates, top party officials who can vote how they like at the party's August convention in Denver.
"Tomorrow is the last day of the primaries and the beginning of a new phase in the campaign," Clinton said, according to the Washington Post.
Voting began at 7:00 am in parts of South Dakota (1200 GMT) and an hour later in the rest of that state and Montana.
Polls were to close at 7:00 pm in South Dakota (0000 and 0100 GMT Wednesday), and at 8:00 pm in Montana (0200 GMT).
Via afp
Obama eyes history, Clinton refuses to quit
martes, 3 de junio de 2008 | Etiquetas: Hillary Clinton, Obama
Sen. Barack Obama's advertising team is getting some friendly competition from film pros with some Oscar clout like Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.
The liberal group MoveOn.org, reprising a 2004 ad contest against President Bush, has enlisted the actors to help select an ad supporting Obama's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. MoveOn plans to air the winning commercial on national television, but organizers hope the real benefit could come simply from media attention, Internet buzz and the star power behind it.
"The spirit of the contest is to put into video form what it is that you think will help push Obama over the top." said Iliyse Hogue, the campaign director for MoveOn.org Political Action. "It's a great thing for aspiring ad makers and film makers who want to participate in a meaningful way."
Participants in the "Obama in 30 Seconds" contest will have until April 1 to submit their entries. MoveOn members, which the organization places at 3.2 million people, will be able to vote on their favorites by watching them on the MoveOn Web site. The top 15 entries will then be judged by a panel of liberal activists, recording artists and Hollywood notables.
Among them will be Affleck and Damon, both Academy Award winning actors and writers. Also judging will be actor Steve Buscemi, film director Oliver Stone, singer songwriters Moby, Eddie Vedder and John Legend, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and hip-hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons.
MoveOn plans to announce the winner five days before the April 22 Pennsylvania primary. But Hogue said the organization had not yet decided when the ad would appear on television. "We want to see what the landscape looks like," she said.
MoveOn.org has endorsed Obama and has used its membership network to make phone calls promoting his candidacy and to hold Obama house parties in Texas. Hogue said MoveOn members have donated $600,000 to the Obama campaign through MoveOn. By law, the group is not permitted to coordinate its ad campaign with Obama's.
In 2004, MoveOn received 1,500 entries for its "Bush in 30 Seconds" competition. The winner was an ad called "Child's Pay," depicting children performing adult jobs followed by the words: "Guess who's going to pay off President Bush's $1 trillion deficit?" CBS refused to run the ad during the Super Bowl, but it still ended up being among the most watched political commercials, receiving free air time on newscasts and Web sites.
The entries that year, however, included two that compared Bush to Hitler, which MoveOn removed from its contest Web site but which the Republican Party used as examples of "hate speech."
The contest entries this time are explicit: "Please no personal attacks on anyone."
Other official rules:
_ "Ads must be about Barack Obama and portray him in a positive light."
_ "Ads should not talk about or specifically reference Hillary Clinton or any other Democratic presidential candidate".
_ "Ads may reference John McCain, George W. Bush or the Bush administration, but only in the context of contrasting them with Barack Obama."
Via ap
