Clinton's Vow to Fight On Stokes Democrats' Concern (Update1)

By Heidi Przybyla and Laura Litvan

May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Hillary Clinton's campaign may be broken. Now some Democrats are asking if she'll also break the party.

The prospect of the race for the presidential nomination dragging on after Barack Obama's North Carolina victory and his narrow loss in Indiana may jeopardize the party's chances in the general election, said Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, an unaligned Democrat.

``What I think a lot of us are worried about is the grinding and grinding on with this, and how tough it's going to be to come back and run a top-notch campaign in the fall,'' he said.

Other Democrats say Clinton has no chance of winning. Representative Louise Slaughter of New York, a supporter, called the election results ``grim'' for the New York senator. ``If you look at all the math and what's out there, it's pretty unlikely'' she can win, said Slaughter.

Former Senator George McGovern said yesterday he is switching his support to Obama from Clinton and urged her to quit. ``There comes a time when you have to call off the rivalry,'' McGovern said in an interview. ``We are just about there.''

House Chief Deputy Whip John Lewis of Georgia, who earlier endorsed Clinton and then shifted to Obama, said it is important that the Democratic race wraps up quickly. ``The time is short, the end is near,'' Lewis said.

Stream of Endorsements

Obama plans to announce a stream of endorsements by superdelegates -- the party officials and officeholders who aren't bound by the results of primaries and caucuses --including three who backed him yesterday. The campaign also confirmed that Jennifer McClellan, a Virginia superdelegate, shifted her support to Obama from Clinton. At that rate, he may have as many superdelegates as Clinton by the weekend.

Clinton, 60, met with superdelegates yesterday, and Obama, 46, an Illinois senator, returned to Washington to meet with them today. He appeared this morning on the House floor, stopping to chat with Clinton supporters John Murtha and Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania and Ike Skelton of Missouri.

``We'll find out,'' Obama said, when asked whether his trip to the Capitol netted him any new superdelegates.

Clinton vows to fight on. ``I'm staying in this race until there's a nominee,'' she told reporters in West Virginia yesterday. ``I obviously am going to work as hard as I can to become that nominee.''

Yet her chances of catching Obama in delegates or the popular vote died on May 6.

Vote Count

Obama won North Carolina by 232,700 votes, topping Clinton's 214,000-vote margin of victory in Pennsylvania on April 22 and leaving him with a lead of more than 800,000 votes in contested primaries and caucuses.

Obama has a total of 1,846 committed delegates to Clinton's 1,688.5, unofficial Associated Press tallies show.

Clinton's campaign, which said after her Pennsylvania win that it was collecting millions of dollars in donations, is running out of cash. She confirmed yesterday that she loaned her campaign $6.4 million since April, bringing her personal investment in her bid this year to $11.4 million. She raised another $1 million at a Washington fundraiser yesterday, spokesman Mo Elleithee said.

One insider who asked for anonymity said the Clinton team is spending almost $1 million a day and expressed doubt that the campaign can sustain a real effort for much longer.

Race Against McCain

One of Clinton's main rationales for staying in the race, that she would be a stronger candidate in November, is undercut by an analysis of public polls by news organizations and Gallup. They show Clinton and Obama running about the same against Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.

In some states, including Florida, Ohio and Missouri, she runs stronger against McCain. Obama does better than Clinton in more states, including Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin, according to state surveys. In big states that Clinton has argued that only she can carry -- California, Pennsylvania and New Jersey -- both beat McCain by about the same margin.

There already are signs the battle may take a toll on Democrats. McCain trounces both Clinton and Obama in Virginia, where Democrats had been optimistic.

Democratic strategist Peter Hart, who is unaligned, says a protracted fight may create difficulties for the party.

Party Fissures

Arizona Senator McCain, 71, can maintain his competitive position in most national polls because the party is fractured, Hart said in a recent memo. One-quarter of the supporters of each Democratic candidate say they would either vote for the Republican nominee or wouldn't participate in the election.

These voters ``represent the difference between a dead-heat election and a comfortable lead for the Democrats,'' Hart's memo said.

To be sure, some officials such as Meredith Wood Smith, chairwoman of the Oregon Democratic Party, say the contest is galvanizing voters and that a nomination battle that ends in June leaves plenty of time to draw contrasts with McCain.

``This state is energized in every single corner and in between,'' she said.

Many more officials argue that the churn of the campaign will hurt the party's chances of unifying.

``McCain is no pushover,'' said Tennessee Governor Bredesen. The longer the fight drags on, the greater the risk of political damage, he said. ``It's like in a marriage -- in a good marriage it's OK to fight, but there are just things you don't say and places you don't go and can't get back from.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Heidi Przybyla in Washington at hprzybyla@bloomberg.net ; Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 8, 2008 11:51 EDT

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