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WASHINGTON: Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama
has scored a coup in his White House nominating battle against
Hillary Clinton by winning the high-profile endorsement of
blue-collar champion John Edwards.
Edwards, a two-time presidential
hopeful and the party’s 2004 vice- presidential nominee, formally
backed the Illinois senator at an exuberant Michigan rally late
Wednesday, reinforcing signs of the Democratic establishment closing
ranks behind Obama.
The announcement punctured
Clinton’s short-lived boost after her landslide win in Tuesday’s
West Virginia primary, although the former first lady said she
didn’t believe in quitting, and would fight on.
Edwards hailed Clinton as a woman
“made of steel” who had strengthened the Democratic Party and
the eventual presidential nominee by fighting so doggedly for issues
dear to her heart.
But the former North Carolina
senator said: “The Democratic voters of America have made their
choice and so have I.”
Clinton Campaign Chairman Terry
McAuliffe brushed off Edwards’ announcement, which capped a day of
endorsements for Obama including that of the nation’s top abortion
rights organization.
“We respect John Edwards, but
as the voters of West Virginia showed last night, this thing is far
from over,” he said.
The former first lady routed
Obama by 67 to 26 percent in West Virginia and was the runaway
leader with white and lower-income voters, in a worrying sign for
Obama as he contemplates swing voters Democrats need to win in
November.
Asked earlier on CNN if she would
fight to the end of the primary season on June 3, Clinton said:
“I’m not going anywhere, except to Kentucky and Oregon, and
Montana, South Dakota, and Puerto Rico.”
“I don’t believe in quitting.
You may not win in life, but you do the best you can. You go the
distance,” she said, after scooping 20 of West Virginia’s 28
delegates on Tuesday.
However, far more significant
than West Virginia is the bloc of nearly 800 Democratic
“superdelegates” who could have the casting vote to decide the
party’s White House standard-bearer against Republican John
McCain.
Obama won the support of at least
five more superdelegates Wednesday. Clinton secured the backing of
one, a party leader in Tennessee.
Obama was also endorsed by three
former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who
joined ex-Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker in extolling the
Democrat’s capacity to take on “monumental economic
challenges.”
And Clinton, bidding to be the
first female president, suffered a body blow with the endorsement of
her rival by the million-strong National Abortion & Reproductive
Rights Action League Pro-Choice America.
The group’s president, Nancy
Keenan, said its vaunted grassroots strength was going to Obama,
“the pro-choice candidate whom we believe will secure the
Democratic nomination and advance to the general election.”
According to the latest tally by
the independent website RealClearPolitics, Obama now has 1,886
delegates in total to Clinton’s 1,719, putting him considerably
closer to the winning line of 2,025.
--AFP
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