Bill Clinton near victory

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Hillary Clinton picked up delegates in both Puerto Rico and Washington this weekend, but too few, leaving her advisers warning the New York senator was prepared to carry her fight for the presidential nomination to the Democratic National Convention.

Odds are, however, the threat is mere bluster. This race could be over as early as this week, provided 200 or so dithering superdelegates finally make up their minds.

Ms. Clinton reinforced her impressive strength among Latino voters yesterday by trouncing Barack Obama in the Puerto Rico primary, taking the commonwealth by a margin of better than two-to-one. With 85 per cent of the vote in, she led with 68 per cent to Mr. Obama’s 32 per cent.

“You voted even though some tried to tell you your votes wouldn’t count,” Ms. Clinton told enthusiastic supporters. “You voted for the person you believe will still be the stronger nominee and the strongest president. And you are not alone.”

She repeated her claim that “we are winning the popular vote. Now there can be no doubt. The people have spoken and you have chosen your candidate.”

Ms. Clinton may or may not be ahead in the popular vote.

It all depends on whether you count Michigan, where Mr. Obama received no votes because his name was not on the ballot, and certain caucus states where no vote totals are available.

Regardless, the nominee is chosen based not on popular vote, but on which candidate has a majority of delegates at the Democratic National Convention.

Ms. Clinton also gained ground on Saturday, when the Democratic Party’s rules and bylaws committee met to consider what to do with the vexed states of Florida and Michigan. The Democratic National Committee had disqualified their primaries because they were held in January, against party rules.

But with the race so tight, keeping two of the largest states out of the convention would split the party and encourage those states to vote Republican, and so the rules committee met Saturday to reconsider its position.

The gathering was raucous, with Clinton supporters in particular cheering and jeering throughout the proceedings. On the question of Florida, however, all sides found common ground.

In that state, although no candidates campaigned, both Ms. Clinton’s and Mr. Obama’s names were on the ballot, with Ms. Clinton winning the contest 50 per cent to Mr. Obama’s 33 per cent of the popular vote.

The committee agreed, and both Obama and Clinton representatives concurred, that the delegates should be apportioned on that basis but with each delegate given only half of each vote. Some in the crowd didn’t like it, but the committee’s support was unanimous.

In Michigan, however, the situation was more complex. Because Mr. Obama took his name off the ballot once the state was disqualified, but Ms. Clinton left hers on, she took 55 per cent of the vote, with 40 per cent declaring themselves uncommitted.

The Michigan Democratic Party leadership offered a compromise, based largely on exit poll data, that apportioned 69 delegates to Ms. Clinton and 59 to Mr. Obama, with each delegate getting half of each vote. The formula awarded all the uncommitted vote to Mr. Obama, along with four delegates that Ms. Clinton had earned based on her percentage of the popular vote. At the end of the day, Ms. Clinton had netted 24 delegates from the two states.

The Michigan decision, however, left her supporters furious.

“It is stunning. It is just outright hijacking,” senior adviser Harold Ickes declared on CNN. He warned the committee on Saturday that Ms. Clinton reserved the right to appeal its decision to the party’s credentials committee, which meets shortly before the convention opens at the end of August in Denver.

If the Clinton campaign went that far, then the issue would probably be resolved on the floor of the convention, which would be highly damaging for both the party and the eventual nominee.

Mr. Obama discounted that likelihood on Saturday. Speaking of Ms. Clinton and former president Bill Clinton, he said: “They love the Democratic Party. I think they deeply believe that Democrats need to win in November. And so I trust that they’re going to do the right thing.”

South Dakota and Montana are the scene of the final two primaries tomorrow. Mr. Obama could well win both of them. That, along with a few more declarations by superdelegates, could be enough to put him past the new magic number of 2118 delegates needed to assure victory at the Democratic National Convention.

To prevent that, Ms. Clinton must do better in the final two primaries than expected, take the overwhelming majority of 200 or so undecided superdelegates, and carry on the fight to the credentials committee, hoping to reverse the DNC compromise in Michigan.

But she is unlikely to go forward with that appeal if the superdelegates move decisively in Mr. Obama’s direction, as they have been doing, rendering Michigan moot. What the party needs now is for the remaining uncommitted superdelegates to reveal their intentions. Some may have been holding back because they remain genuinely undecided; others may be seeking to maximize the impact of their announcement.

Regardless, expect party leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and DNC chairman Howard Dean to publicly urge the supers to speak now and not even think about holding their peace.

“This needs to end in the month of June,” Mr. Dean reiterated on ABC yesterday morning. “We don’t want to go to the convention and have a big fight at the convention and lose the presidency.”

If the supers take Mr. Dean’s advice, by this time next week, the race for the Democratic presidential nomination may be all over but the conceding, if that doesn’t happen as well.

Delegate count

Hillary Clinton won the most delegates in Puerto Rico’s primary yesterday, but Barack Obama crept closer to clinching the Democratic nomination for president. Here’s where they stood with most of the votes counted last night
Pledged delegates Superdelegates Total Delegates remaining
OBAMA 1,735 333 2,068 50
CLINTON 1,615 290 1,905 213

Delegates needed to win: 2,118

* Obama needs 50 more delegates to win, Clinton needs 213 more delegates to win.

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