Obama Camp Says Democratic Race Will Be Settled in 6 Days
Barack Obama chats with reporters about the end game of the Democratic presidential race Wednesday aboard his campaign plane. (AP Photo)
Six days and counting.
That’s how long Barack Obama thinks it’ll take before he is the hands-down nominee of the Democratic Party and can make the full pivot toward a general election.
Hillary Clinton is still traipsing through primary states and pressing her case to uncommitted superdelegates, but the Obama campaign is spreading the word that once the final primaries in South Dakota and Montana are held Tuesday, the race is over.
“I would say either on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, we’ll know the Democratic nominee,” Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said on a cable news show Thursday morning. “And I can predict for you right here … that that Democratic nominee will be Barack Obama.”
Obama told reporters on his campaign plane Wednesday night that he believes he’ll clinch the nomination Tuesday, and that will mark the start of the general election campaign.
He may limp to the finish. Puerto Rico precedes the final contests on Sunday, and a new poll shows Clinton — a favorite among Hispanic voters — leading by double digits in the territory. With 55 delegates, it is the most valuable contest left on the calendar. Montana and South Dakota offer just 16 and 15 delegates, respectively.
Obama also could lose part of his wide lead on Saturday, when a Democratic National Committee panel meets to consider the disputed Michigan and Florida delegations. Clinton won both states, but the delegations were stripped because the states held early primaries in violation of party rules.
Neither candidate campaigned there, and Obama wasn’t on the ballot in Michigan, but Obama says he’s willing to seat some delegates from those states.
Still, Obama is now leading by 202 delegates, and is just 44 short of the 2,026 it takes to win the nomination.
Even if some of the Florida and Michigan delegates are seated and the 2,026 threshold increases, the Obama campaign claims it will be able to soon pick up enough superdelegates to make up the difference.
The superdelegates, party officials and insiders unbound to either candidate, have been steadily breaking for Obama over the past few weeks, and Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe said that if the DNC decision raises the bar, “we’ll have to go get some more superdelegates. But at some point we’re the nominee.”
Gibbs said many superdelegates are just waiting until the final primaries June 3 before making a decision.
Meanwhile, Clinton campaigned in South Dakota Thursday, and is arguing that she’s still the popular favorite.
“A lot of people wanted this election to be over a long time ago … I never figured that out, because I kept winning,” Clinton said in Watertown, S.D., Thursday. “And you’d think if it were over, that wouldn’t keep happening. And so today, I lead in the popular vote. I believe it’s important that Montana and South Dakota get to have the last say in this important election.”
But party leaders will likely begin applying extra pressure after June 3 to end the race.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she will step in to prevent the primary campaign from going all the way to the August convention in Denver.
In an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle, Pelosi said she thinks there will be a nominee soon after the Tuesday primaries, but that she will get involved if Florida and Michigan are not settled by late June.
“We cannot take this fight to the convention,” she said. “It must be over before then.”
Comments