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WASHINGTON: Hillary Clinton will abandon her White House bid on
Saturday and throw her support to Democratic rival Barack Obama, her
campaign said, after she bid an emotional farewell to her loyal
staff.
The announcement came a day after Obama secured
enough delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination and as the
party united behind the Illinois senator to take the fight to
Republican John McCain in November’s election.
Clinton had refused to concede Tuesday, saying
she would deliberate in the coming days, but the brief message from
her team had an air of finality about her doomed bid to become the
first female president.
“Senator Clinton will be hosting an event in
Washington to thank her supporters and express her support for
Senator Obama and party unity,” the New York senator’s campaign
said in a statement.
Obama responded to the news in a brief remark to
a pool reporter, saying: “Truth is, I haven’t had time to think
about it. This weekend, I’m going home, talk it over with Michele
and we’re going on a date.”
US media earlier reported Clinton would bow out
Friday at the urging of Democratic members of Congress, but her
campaign said she would hold an event Saturday instead to allow more
of her supporters to attend.
Clinton visited her campaign headquarters in
Arlington, in Washington’s Virginia suburbs, on Wednesday to
inform most of the staff that they would no longer be required after
Friday, ABC News said.
Junior staffers were said to be emotional and
some were crying at the final confirmation that their 16 months of
hard graft had come to naught.
Clinton would be bowing to the reality that
after the final primaries were held in Montana and South Dakota on
Tuesday, Obama is the Democratic Party’s heir apparent for
November’s election against McCain.
However, in refusing to concede immediately, she
kept her options open, and Clinton surrogates spent Wednesday
talking up her credentials to be Obama’s nominee for vice
president.
Clinton sung her rival’s praises to a powerful
pro-Israel lobby earlier in the day, her clearest admission yet that
the race was over.
“Let me be very clear, I know that Senator
Obama will be a good friend to Israel,” she said, seeking to shed
his perceived weaknesses among Jewish voters.
Obama told reporters after a visit to the US
Senate that he had talked with Clinton in the early hours of
Wednesday.
“We are going to be having a conversation with
the coming weeks,” he said, adding he was confident the party
would be unified by the November elections.
On November 4, voters must pick between Obama,
46, a freshman senator and charismatic mixed-race champion of a new
political generation, and McCain, 71, a Vietnam War hero asking for
one final call to service.
-- AFP
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