Obama Says Clinton Can “Run As Long As She Wants To” by Bonney Kapp When asked about Senator Patrick Leahy’s (D-VT) comments in an interview this week that Senator Clinton should drop out of the race, Senator Barack Obama admitted he hadn’t broached the subject with Leahy, who was an early Obama endorser. “My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants. Her name is on the ballot and she is a fierce and formidable competitor and she obviously believes that she would make the best nominee and the best president and I think that, you know, she should be able to compete and her supporters should be able to support her for as long as they are willing or able,” Obama told reporters at a media availability.
Just how long the primary campaign will continue has some Democrats, like Leahy, worried. The concern is that as Obama and Clinton campaign against each other, the more likely it is the Democratic Party will fracture and Senator McCain will stand to benefit. Obama rejected that notion, saying he though those claims were “overstated.”
“I think the party is going to come together. You can’t tell me that some of my supporters are going to say, ‘well we’d rather have the guy who may want to stay in Iraq for a hundred years because we are mad that Senator Clinton ran a negative ad against Senator Obama.’ I think the converse is true as well,” he explained.
That said, Senator Obama said he hopes the nominee will be selected prior to the Democrat’s August convention. “When we’ve completed all the contests that are remaining, some time in early June, that at that point there are no more contests and I think it is important to pivot as quickly as possible, for the superdelegates or others to make a decision as quickly as possible so that we can settle on a nominee and give that nominee some time before the convention to select a vice president or presidential nominee to start thinking about how the convention should be conducted,” he said.
A brokered convention is something Obama hopes to avoid. “At that point, there won’t be really anything, any further information to be had. We will have had contests in all fifty states plus several terroritories. We will have tallied up the pledge delegate vote. We will have tallied up the popular vote, we will have tallied up how many states that were won by who. And then at that point, I think people should have more than enough information to make a decision.”
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