March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she may keep challenging rival Barack Obama right up to their party's national convention in August, the Washington Post reported.

Clinton, 60, a New York senator, has been rejecting calls that she drop out of the race as she lags behind Obama in pledged delegates to the nominating convention. She has also been pushing to validate the results of primaries in Florida and Michigan, which were disqualified by the Democratic Party.

``I have no intention of stopping until we finish what we started and until we see what happens in the next 10 contests and until we resolve Florida and Michigan,'' Clinton said in an interview with the Washington Post today in Indiana. ``And if we don't resolve it, we'll resolve it at the convention.''

Florida and Michigan Democrats lost the right to send delegates to the convention because the two states moved up their primaries in violation of party rules. Both Clinton and Obama agreed not to campaign in the two states and Obama took his name off the ballot in Michigan.

Clinton won both primaries. And she has spent recent weeks arguing that disenfranchising the people who voted is unfair and would hurt Democrats in the November election as they try to win those critical battleground states. The primaries should count or the states should hold new elections, she says.

Strongest Yet

Her comments to the Post are the strongest she has made yet on the issue of how far she will go to contest the nomination. Clinton requested the interview, the newspaper said in a story published on its Web site.

While campaigning in Pennsylvania today, Obama told reporters that Clinton should be able to stay in the race ``as long as she wants.'' Still, he said a nominee should be determined soon after the primaries conclude in early June.

``It's important to pivot as quickly as possible'' so that so-called superdelegates can make up their minds, Obama said.

The nominee will need ``some time before the convention to select a vice presidential nominee and start thinking about how the convention should be conducted,'' said Obama, 46, an Illinois senator.

Neither Obama nor Clinton is likely to end up with enough delegates allocated by primaries and caucuses to win the nomination. Therefore, the nominee will be decided by superdelegates, almost 800 Democratic Party officials and lawmakers who aren't bound by election results.

Obama argues that his lead in pledged delegates should hold the most sway with superdelegates; Clinton says her wins in big states such as Ohio show that she has the best chance against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in November.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kristin Jensen with the Clinton campaign at kjensen@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: March 29, 2008 22:27 EDT