Puerto Rico victory too late for Clinton

WASHINGTON — The race all but over, Hillary Rodham Clinton is determining how to end her historic candidacy with her dignity intact and future secure.

It's not an academic question, since rival Barack Obama is expected to secure enough delegates this week to claim the Democratic presidential nomination. The former first lady and New York senator is said to be considering a range of options, including dropping out of the race and endorsing Obama, suspending her candidacy to be available in the outside chance he stumbles, or carrying her fight to the convention.

Clinton picked up 38 delegates in winning Puerto Rico's primary by a sizable margin Sunday, but Obama gained 17 delegates there, pushing him closer to the 2,118 necessary to seize the nomination. Two more superdelegates also signed on for Obama.

The final two contests in their marathon primary — South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday — offer just 31 delegates, not enough to put Obama over the top. The nomination rests with the superdelegates, who can vote their choice at the August convention in Denver.

The Puerto Rico victory — coming among Hispanic voters, who are a key constituency in the fall election — underscored a constant source of frustration among Clinton and her supporters: that her strong finish over the past months, with big victories among blue-collar voters, has shown no signs of pushing uncommitted superdelegates into her camp.

"Most Clinton supporters are filled with bewilderment that this is happening," said Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania. "Why haven't these results caused the superdelegates to come around?"

Advisers to both Clinton and Obama predict that the remaining 200 or so uncommitted superdelegates will move quickly this week in making their choices.

Democratic leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are eager to see the party united after the epic, nearly half-year primary battle and are loath to see a protracted fight to the convention. That group includes some of Clinton's most stalwart supporters, who have reluctantly concluded that it's time to move on.

"It does appear to be pretty clear that Senator Obama is going to be the nominee," said Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor and a national co-chairman of Clinton's campaign. "After Tuesday's contests, she needs to acknowledge that he's going to be the nominee and quickly get behind him."

But Clinton herself on Sunday argued a case for staying in the race and even trying to capture Obama's own delegates. Flying on the plane with her was Kevin Rodriguez, a Virgin Islands superdelegate who switched from Clinton to Obama and then recently back to Clinton again.

"One thing about superdelegates is that they can change their minds," she said aboard her plane in Puerto Rico before taking off for South Dakota.

She also said she is not committed to accepting the new 2,118-delegate threshold for winning the nomination. "That's a question we will be considering," she said.

She continued to argue that she leads in the popular-vote count — the way she counts it — and said, "I have put together a much broader coalition" of voters than Obama.

The decision Saturday by the party rules committee to seat disputed delegations from Michigan and Florida at half-strength extinguished the former first lady's last, slender hope of slowing Obama's march to the nomination. Clinton won both states' primaries, but their results were voided because their early primaries violated party rules. Obama's name wasn't even on the Michigan ballot.

The committee, which includes several Clinton backers, rejected her argument that the contests were legitimate and the delegations should be recognized in full. It was a tacit acknowledgment by party insiders that Obama was poised to secure the nomination and that it was time to rally around his candidacy.

Pelosi, who has been neutral in the contest, said as much in a statement praising the decision immediately after it was announced.

"I look forward to an historic convention focused on defeating John McCain in November and putting a Democrat in the White House," Pelosi wrote.

Still, the Clinton team signaled she might consider an appeal of the Michigan decision because the committee awarded the delegates based on a complicated formula devised by the state Democratic Party that did not reflect the votes as they were cast in the disputed Jan. 15 primary.

Harold Ickes, Clinton's top delegate hunter and a Rules Committee member, said Sunday the committee had "hijacked" the vote. But he stopped short of saying she would make good on the threat to push the case forward.

"There's nobody taking Hillary's side but Hillary people," said Donald Fowler of South Carolina, a former national party chairman and one of Clinton's most prominent supporters, referring to her potential challenge of the Rules Committee decision. "It's too bad: She deserves better than this."

Observers believe Clinton is simply trying to keep all options open until Obama is declared the winner, at which point she'll reassess.

"I think it's a position the campaign is taking until the primaries are over. Until then, I don't think it can be seen as anything more than posturing," said Fowler, a Rules Committee member who voted for the Michigan compromise.

Privately, Clinton's aides have said her run is over and it's simply a matter of when it becomes formal. And after maintaining a respectful distance in the final weeks of the campaign, Obama campaign aides have begun to reach out to their counterparts on the Clinton campaign in hopes of pulling together and ameliorating hard feelings.

"You've got two very, very strong candidates with a lot of committed supporters competing vigorously for a long time," Obama strategist David Axelrod said. "Of course there are strong feelings. It would be weird if it were any other way."

Associated Press Writer Jim Kuhnhenn in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report. Also, material from The New York Times is included in this report.