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Puerto Rico Win Keeps Clinton In Ring

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The New York Times

Published: June 2, 2008

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won another overwhelming victory over Sen. Barack Obama on Sunday - this time in Puerto Rico - even as many Democrats, including some of her supporters, suggested it would be best if she dropped her threat to battle on past the end of the primary voting Tuesday.

"There's nobody taking Hillary's side but Hillary people," said Donald Fowler of South Carolina, a former national party chairman and one of her most prominent supporters, referring to her suggestions that she might seek to challenge this weekend's resolution of the fight over seating the Michigan and Florida delegations. "It's too bad: She deserves better than this."

Meanwhile, Obama spent Sunday in South Dakota, which will vote along with Montana on Tuesday to complete the primary season, in an attempt to thwart a last-minute effort by Clinton to pull out a victory there and build her case that she would be the stronger candidate in the general election.

The dimensions of Clinton's challenge were underlined as two more superdelegates signed on for Obama.

Clinton won by a 2-1 ratio in Puerto Rico, where she seemed to revel in a weekend of campaigning even as her surrogates fought bitterly in Washington to keep her campaign alive.

The victory - coming among Hispanic voters, a key constituency - underscored a constant source of frustration among Clinton and her supporters: that her strong finishes during the past months, with big victories among blue-collar voters, have shown no signs of pushing uncommitted superdelegates into her camp.

"Most Clinton supporters are filled with bewilderment that this is happening," said Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania. "We are willing to go on, and we understand the inevitability of this, but we are filled with disappointment and amazement: Why haven't these results caused the superdelegates to come around?"

Clinton's New Argument

Clinton, in an interview, in a new television advertisement and in her victory speech in San Juan, laid out a new argument for why superdelegates should rally around her: that by the time the final vote is counted, she will have more popular votes than Obama, an assertion that has been disputed.

"I think it will be most likely the case in a few days," Clinton said by telephone from San Juan. "I will have won the most votes - more than anyone in the history of the primary process."

She added: "Sen. Obama has a narrow lead in delegates. And we're going have to make our case to the automatic so-called superdelegates. And I think my case is clear; more than 17 million people voted for me."

Clinton's count includes Michigan, where Obama's name did not appear on the ballot, and it does not include some caucus states won by Obama and where the popular vote was not reported. Obama's campaign gently pushed back at her assertions that she had won the popular vote.

"Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have gotten more votes than any presidential campaign in primary history," said Bill Burton, Obama's spokesman. "We are, however, ahead in the popular vote now and suspect will be ahead when all of the votes are counted Tuesday."

In the interview, Clinton resisted the push of some Democratic leaders - among them, party chairman Howard Dean and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi - for superdelegates to quickly chose sides as soon as the voting is over Tuesday.

Clinton stopped short of going as far as one of her chief lieutenants, Harold Ickes, did Saturday night when he threatened to go to the convention in August with a challenge to the decision of the Rules and Bylaws Committee over the seating of the Michigan and Florida delegations. The two states held their primaries early, in defiance of party rules; after initially unseating the delegations, the party on Saturday agreed to seat the delegates but cut their voting power in half.

In the process, it awarded Obama a share of the Michigan vote, based on the number of uncommitted votes counted, even though his name did not appear on the ballot, and it took four Michigan delegates away from Clinton.

"Well, we are going to look at that and make a determination at some point," she said. "But I haven't made any decision at this time."

Is It Worth It?

In a sign of the difficulties she would face if she chooses to challenge the party's decision, some of her strongest supporters said they thought it would be a mistake to keep the fight going, noting, for example, that the battle was really over the four delegates her campaign argued were improperly taken from her in Michigan.

Rendell, the Pennsylvania governor, said that if the nominating contest were closer, it might make sense to take the fight to the convention. "I think it's outrageous they took four delegates away from her," he said. "But I think with 170 delegates separating them, it's not worth making the case."

There were signs that continuing the fight, if Obama collects enough superdelegates to declare victory this week, could alienate Democratic leaders who are stepping back as the fight goes on.

Art Torres, the California Democratic chairman who has not endorsed in the race, said it was urgent for the party to avoid divisive battles.

"It now becomes a matter of commitment to the nation and the party. We cannot allow this election to slip through our fingers," he said.

A practical effect of the rules committee decision was that Obama had to win over about 30 new superdelegates to meet the revised political calculation.

The tally of uncommitted superdelegates had dwindled to fewer than 150 Sunday.

It remained unclear, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said, whether Obama could secure enough of the endorsements before Tuesday evening. If not, though, Obama's advisers - as well as Clinton's - think it is likely he will pass the threshold and be able to claim the nomination later this week.

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