No convention battle, top Democrats say

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted a swift end to the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination once South Dakotans and Montanans cast the last ballots of the primary season Tuesday, saying there is little support among party leaders for a drawn-out fight by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York to secure support from unpledged superdelegates.

Reid, of Nevada, and Pelosi, of California, in separate events in San Francisco, suggested the race is likely to end next week, a conclusion that almost certainly means Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois, would secure the Democratic nomination, given his narrow but comfortable lead in pledged delegates and superdelegates.

Party officials said Pelosi and Reid had been contacting uncommitted superdelegates, encouraging them to prepare to go public and resolve any last question about the contest.

The two congressional leaders have no formal authority over the superdelegates, but they can use their strong relationships and powers of persuasion with some of their colleagues to make a public choice.

In an interview Thursday with KGO Radio promoting his new book, Reid said he had spoken about the campaign in recent days with Pelosi and Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean. "We agree there won't be a fight at the convention," he said.

Later, at the Commonwealth Club, Reid said the race would conclude shortly after the South Dakota and Montana contests, but he did not say whom he thought the nominee would be. "By this time next week, it'll be all over, give or take a day," Reid said.

Pelosi, in a meeting with the San Francisco Chronicle's editorial board, predicted the nominee would emerge within a week of the last votes being cast Tuesday. "I think it is all going in the right direction," she said in the interview, published in the newspaper Thursday.

She was adamant that the race would not last through August and the convention in Denver. "We cannot take this fight to the convention," she said.

Reid, Pelosi and many other Democrats have expressed concern that a protracted nominating campaign could harm the party's chances of winning the White House in the fall. Sen. John McCain effectively wrapped up the Republican nomination in March.

The magic number for the nomination now is 2,026 delegates. Obama is within 44 delegates of clinching the nomination, with 1,982 delegates, according to an Associated Press tally, compared with Clinton's 1,782.

Obama stands to gain a minimum of 35 to 40 delegates in remaining primaries, Sunday in Puerto Rico, and Tuesday in Montana and South Dakota under party rules that distribute them proportional to the popular vote, even if he loses all three. He would need to enlist the support of uncommitted superdelegates to amass the rest.

Slightly fewer than 200 superdelegates remain uncommitted, including 64 members of Congress.

The 2,026 figure could grow if the DNC bylaws panel agrees this weekend to seat up to half of the delegates from Michigan and Florida, which were stripped of all their delegates because they pushed their primaries into January in violation of DNC rules.

Clinton threatened to campaign into the August convention if she is not satisfied with the results of the weekend meeting.

Reid and Pelosi endorsed the idea of giving some partial recognition to Michigan and Florida, but Pelosi — who will chair the convention — said there must be some punishment for their decision.

"If you have no order and no discipline in terms of party rules, people will be having their primary in the year before the presidential election," she said. "So there has to be some penalty."

Michigan held its primary Jan. 15 and Florida conducted its Jan. 29, in violation of rules to protect the early-voting status of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Democratic officials in Michigan want the state delegation seated at full strength.

The committee's ruling can be appealed to the party's Credentials Committee, which could place the issue before the convention.

The two cases present different issues. One difference between the two states is how their too-early primaries came into existence.

In Florida, the prime thrust for the move to a January primary came from the state's Republican governor, Charlie Crist, and the GOP-controlled state Legislature. Most legislative Democrats voted for the move-up, saying they liked other elements of the legislation in which it was contained. But they could not have stopped it.

In Michigan, it was the Democrats, most notably Sen. Carl Levin and Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who were responsible for changing the schedule, breaking the rules and risking the consequences.

Another difference is the ballots. In Florida, Clinton and Obama (along with John Edwards) were on the ballot. All refrained from campaigning there, except for some national cable ads by Obama that ran in the state and an election-eve fundraising visit by Clinton.

In Michigan, candidates had the option of removing their names from the ballot, and Obama and Edwards did, making it less of a full-fledged fight. Instead, voters could chose "uncommitted."

While some Obama supporters used that option, it is impossible to know what uncommitted voters intended, presenting a dilemma for the rules committee as it considers whether to seat a bloc of uncommitted delegates or award them to Obama.

While party officials have suggested halving the delegates allowed from each state, aides to Obama said Thursday that they also would allow Clinton to have a greater share of those delegates than they believe she deserves, hoping to resolve the dispute.

Obama said he considered the general-election campaign to formally begin after Tuesday. Asked if he thought he would become the presumptive nominee then, he said, "I believe so."

"If we've gotten the number of delegates needed to secure the nomination, then I'm the nominee," Obama said late Wednesday. "If we're short of that, we'll have more work to do, but once we achieve it, I think we'll be the nominee."

Compiled from The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Associated Press