WA****NGTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama edged closer to capturing the
Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday amid speculation that
Hillary Clinton will soon drop her historic White House bid.
The Clinton campaign denied a re****t that the New York senator would
say on Tuesday night -- after final voting in a grueling primary
season -- that Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic
nomination.
Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe told CNN the former first
lady was "absolutely not" conceding the campaign and said The
Associated Press re****t was completely incorrect.
"The nomination fight goes on until somebody gets the magic number and
that isn't there today and that is not at all what Senator Clinton is
going to talk about tonight," McAuliffe said.
Citing two unidentified senior campaign officials, the AP said
Clinton, who is trailing Obama in the five-month state-by-state
nominating contest, would stop short of suspending or ending her bid
to face Republican John McCain in the November general election.
Expectations Clinton is near conceding have been building as Democrats
in the final two states -- Montana and South Dakota -- went to the
polls. Voting ends in South Dakota at 7 p.m. MDT/9 p.m. EDT (0100
GMT), and in Montana an hour later, with results expected shortly
after.
With 31 delegates to the Democrats' August convention at stake, the
two states are the last to vote. The party's battle has pitted a man
who would be the first U.S. black president against a woman who would
be the country's first female chief executive.
Obama needs about 35 delegates to reach the 2,118 required to capture
the nomination.
The Illinois senator could hit that number as soon as Tuesday night,
depending on how quickly he wins commitments from nearly 200
uncommitted superdelegates -- party officials who are free to back any
candidate.
BACKING FOR OBAMA
He secured one im****tant endorsement on Tuesday from U.S. Rep. James
Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking Democrat in the U.S.
House of Representatives and the top-ranking black member of Congress.
"Today the process ends," Clyburn told NBC's "Today" show.
Clyburn urged other superdelegates to announce their sup****t on
Tuesday so the Democratic Party could have a clear nominee by day's
end. A number of other superdelegates followed his lead.
Obama planned a victory celebration on Tuesday night to kick off the
general election campaign against McCain after the South Dakota and
Montana polls close. He will hold it in St. Paul, Minnesota -- the
site of the Republican convention in September.
Clinton herself gave no clue about how long she would stay in a
nomination race that she began as a heavy favorite but now has little
chance of winning.
Campaigning in South Dakota on Monday, she said the end of the voting
marked "the beginning of a new phase of the campaign" in which she
will seek to convince superdelegates that she would be the strongest
candidate against McCain in November.
Both Obama and Clinton will speak to a pro-Israel lobbying group in
Wa****ngton on Wednesday, and Obama said he expected to be talking to
Clinton again soon.
He said he told her in a phone conversation on Sunday that "once the
dust settled I was looking forward to meeting with her at a time and
place of her choosing."
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