Clinton to end campaign, back Obama

WASHINGTON — Bowing to pressure and the unyielding political math, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will end her history-making campaign by Saturday and endorse Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Clinton's decision followed a day of private consultation with donors, members of Congress and union supporters, who urged her to back Obama for the sake of party unity, a sentiment voiced throughout the day by Democratic Party leaders. Some were angry she failed to concede Tuesday night, when it was clear Obama had clinched the nomination.

Details of how Clinton would make her exit were being hashed out — even some top aides were caught unaware — but Howard Wolfson, one of Clinton's chief strategists, said Wednesday she would "be hosting an event in Washington" on Saturday "to thank her supporters and express her support for Senator Obama and party unity."

One adviser said Clinton would concede defeat, congratulate Obama and proclaim him the party's nominee, while pledging to do what was needed to assure his victory in November.

Officials said the situation remains fluid, and Clinton might disclose her plans first at a private staff party Friday and at a public event Saturday.

Clinton has different options. She could release her 1,919 delegates to Obama and be finished as a candidate. Or she could suspend her candidacy and keep her delegates, maintaining her political leverage until August's Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Several of Clinton's supporters, notable among them Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, were critical of the tone of Clinton's speech after the conclusion of primaries Tuesday, and a flood of Democratic superdelegates pledged their support to Obama on Wednesday, leaving Clinton with limited options.

"We pledged to support her to the end," Rangel said. "Our problem is not being able to determine when the hell the end is."

The most obvious of Clinton's options, securing a place on the national ticket with Obama, might be difficult to obtain. On his first day as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Obama chose a well-connected three-person team, including Caroline Kennedy, to lead his search for a running mate.

After Obama and Clinton spoke briefly Wednesday, he said, "I'm very confident of how we're going to be able to bring the party together."

Even before Clinton made her decision to stand aside, there were signals she would drastically scale back her campaign. Although it was not publicly disclosed, plans were under way to lay off about 100 campaign workers, or nearly half the staff, starting at the end of this week. Obama aides were holding quiet conversations — on an informal, peer-to-peer basis — to discuss the possibility of some Clinton workers joining their team for the race against presumed Republican nominee John McCain.

There was no comment Wednesday from Obama or his aides on Clinton's intentions. A spokesman, Bill Burton, said the campaign knew only what the news media had reported.

Obama Tuesday night secured the 2,118 delegates to claim the Democratic nomination, but Clinton stopped short of acknowledging that milestone. By Wednesday evening, Obama had garnered the support of 2,154 delegates, according to the Associated Press count.

The New York senator, who entered the presidential contest 17 months ago as a prohibitive favorite, was resisting an immediate exit because "she wanted to touch as many of her supporters as she could," according to an aide who spoke on condition of anonymity.

What she found was strong sentiment that it was time for her presidential run — the strongest bid a woman has made for the White House — to be finished. During a conference call Wednesday with about 30 House members, Clinton was urged to quickly endorse Obama, according to a Democratic aide familiar with the call.

Publicly, Clinton continued to give no quarter. She joined Obama in addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and, while praising the Illinois senator, made no acknowledgment of his triumph in their contest.

Behind the scenes, however, aides and supporters suggested Clinton recognized the end of her candidacy was near.

"There's a sense of reality in the campaign that, from everything you read and hear, Obama has gone over the top," said Mickey Kantor, who chaired Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and has remained close to the couple since. "The only question now is how to extricate from an active campaign, what the next steps are, and what role does Hillary play in this election."

Obama dismissed a question about Clinton's failure to concede Tuesday night when he clinched by the nomination by saying the New York senator was "understandably focused on her supporters."

At the same time, Obama was clearly putting the primary season behind him with the formation of a team to vet potential vice-presidential running mates.

The effort will be overseen by Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the late President Kennedy, who endorsed Obama in January; Eric Holder, former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration; and Jim Johnson, former head of Fannie Mae and a longtime Washington insider.

Some of Clinton's top supporters have been urging Obama to choose her, saying an Obama-Clinton slate would be a ticket to victory in November.

Robert Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television and a leading contributor to Clinton, urged members of the Congressional Black Caucus to lobby Obama to pick Clinton as his running mate. He said he had spoken to Clinton about it and was speaking with her permission.

"We need to have the certainty of winning," Johnson wrote in his letter on Wednesday. "And, I believe, without question, that Barack Obama as president and Hillary Clinton as vice president bring that certainty to the ticket."

David Plouffe, campaign manager for Obama, said the senator feels no pressure to swiftly name a vice-presidential candidate.

Obama was also weighing an invitation from McCain to join the Arizona senator for a series of Town Hall meetings, though not as soon as the Republican would like. "Having just secured our party's nomination, this is one of the many items we will be addressing in the coming days," Plouffe said.

Clinton's initial ambivalence about her future in her speech on Tuesday night stirred concern among some of her top supporters.

"By the time she got on that podium last night, she knew it was over and that she had lost," Hillary Rosen, one of Clinton's most prominent female supporters, wrote on Huffington Post. "I am sure I was not alone in privately urging the campaign over the last two weeks to use the moment to take her due, pass the torch and cement her grace.

"I am also so very disappointed at how she has handled this last week," Rosen wrote.

Material from The New York Times and The Associated Press is included in this report.