Hillary Clinton’s campaign has denied reports that she will concede the Democratic Party of the United States primary campaign to Barack Obama during a speech tonight in New York City.
The Associated Press first reported that two campaign officials stated she would announce her concession tonight. In a statement to the press, Clinton’s campaign said in two sentences, “the AP story is incorrect. Senator Clinton will not concede the nomination this evening.”
Interviewed on CNN today, Terry McAuliffe, Clinton’s campaign manager, called reports of concession “100 percent incorrect,” but stated on NBC’s Today that once Obama reached the magic delegate number of 2,118 Clinton would congratulate him and “call him the nominee”. She also told NBC, “Until someone has that magic number, we’re going to continue to fight for literally those 17.5 million people.”
While Obama needs another 40 primary delegates coming into Tuesday to clinch the nomination with the required 2,118 total, he is considered to be likely to achieve this through the remaining two primaries in Montana and South Dakota. According to two anonymous Clinton campaign officials, the New York Senator believed that Obama, the junior Senator from Illinois, had done enough to secure the Democratic nomination.
On Monday, former President Bill Clinton was quoted as saying, “this may be the last day I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind. I thought I was out of politics, till Hillary decided to run. But it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to be able to go around and campaign for her for president,” he added. President Clinton’s aides later downplayed the statement. It was said that in spite of this, that the campaign was functionally over. The decision to not officially terminate her campaign was observed to give her a bargaining and leverage tool with Obama, on various matters, up to and including the possibility of Clinton being Obama’s vice presidential candidate. Speaking on conditions of anonymity, a Clinton campaign official stated that all Clinton campaign staff would be paid through June 15.
Called the “comeback kid” for her ability to come from behind to win states when in the primary campaign after Obama had begun to take both delegate and popularity leads, Clinton campaigned late into Monday night, for the chance of still taking a final come from behind victory in the final two primary elections.
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