Polly
04-01-2008, 07:17 PM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20080401/pl_bloomberg/ajsmmwnhy9u
Nadine Elsibai and Michael McKee
Tue Apr 1, 3:09 PM ET
April 1 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said he'll keep pressing party superdelegates who haven't yet declared support for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton to choose sides once the last presidential primary is over.
"The only thing that's going to keep us from winning is disunity in the Democratic Party,'' Dean said in a Bloomberg Television interview today. "We've got to bring this to an orderly close at the right time.''
He rejected an idea being promoted by Tennessee Governor Philip Bredesen to hold a superdelegate convention to select the party's nominee after the last primary on June 3.
With 10 contests remaining in the nomination race, neither Obama nor Clinton is likely to win enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination. That will leave the decision in the hands of 794 so-called superdelegates, party officials and officeholders who vote at the national convention and aren't bound by results in caucuses and primaries.
About 470 superdelegates are publicly supporting either Obama or Clinton. Dean said he wants those who haven't declared to ``make their wishes known well before the convention'' is held Aug. 25-28. That way the party can focus on the general-election campaign against Republican John McCain, he said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today echoed Dean's call.
"I do think that it is important for us to get behind one candidate a long time before we go to the Democratic National Convention,'' the California Democrat said on ABC's "Good Morning America'' program.
Candidates in Pennsylvania
Clinton and Obama are campaigning today in Pennsylvania, which will have 158 pledged delegates at stake in a primary on April 22. Clinton, a senator from New York, is vowing to stay in the race even if the fight carries into the convention.
Obama, an Illinois senator, has 1,414 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses so far to Clinton's 1,250, according to an unofficial tally by the Associated Press. She leads in the number of superdelegate endorsements, 256 to 218, according to lists supplied by the campaigns and interviews.
A candidate needs 2,024 delegates to win the nomination. That doesn't include delegates from Florida and Michigan, two states stripped of their votes at the convention for holding early primaries.
Clinton told members of the AFL-CIO labor federation today that she will create 3 million new jobs with her plan to improve the nation's infrastructure.
"We're trying to run today's economy on yesterday's infrastructure,'' she said in Philadelphia. "We are jeopardizing America's prosperity...''
Nadine Elsibai and Michael McKee
Tue Apr 1, 3:09 PM ET
April 1 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said he'll keep pressing party superdelegates who haven't yet declared support for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton to choose sides once the last presidential primary is over.
"The only thing that's going to keep us from winning is disunity in the Democratic Party,'' Dean said in a Bloomberg Television interview today. "We've got to bring this to an orderly close at the right time.''
He rejected an idea being promoted by Tennessee Governor Philip Bredesen to hold a superdelegate convention to select the party's nominee after the last primary on June 3.
With 10 contests remaining in the nomination race, neither Obama nor Clinton is likely to win enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination. That will leave the decision in the hands of 794 so-called superdelegates, party officials and officeholders who vote at the national convention and aren't bound by results in caucuses and primaries.
About 470 superdelegates are publicly supporting either Obama or Clinton. Dean said he wants those who haven't declared to ``make their wishes known well before the convention'' is held Aug. 25-28. That way the party can focus on the general-election campaign against Republican John McCain, he said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today echoed Dean's call.
"I do think that it is important for us to get behind one candidate a long time before we go to the Democratic National Convention,'' the California Democrat said on ABC's "Good Morning America'' program.
Candidates in Pennsylvania
Clinton and Obama are campaigning today in Pennsylvania, which will have 158 pledged delegates at stake in a primary on April 22. Clinton, a senator from New York, is vowing to stay in the race even if the fight carries into the convention.
Obama, an Illinois senator, has 1,414 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses so far to Clinton's 1,250, according to an unofficial tally by the Associated Press. She leads in the number of superdelegate endorsements, 256 to 218, according to lists supplied by the campaigns and interviews.
A candidate needs 2,024 delegates to win the nomination. That doesn't include delegates from Florida and Michigan, two states stripped of their votes at the convention for holding early primaries.
Clinton told members of the AFL-CIO labor federation today that she will create 3 million new jobs with her plan to improve the nation's infrastructure.
"We're trying to run today's economy on yesterday's infrastructure,'' she said in Philadelphia. "We are jeopardizing America's prosperity...''