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Brinkmanship: Obama, Clinton delegates jockey to the end
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 27 - 08 - 2008


Just hours before Democratic delegates
are to make a formal and symbolic choice between two historic firsts
for their party - an African-American or woman presidential candidate
- uncertainty prevailed Wednesday about just how the vote at the
party convention would play out later Wednesday, according to dpa.
Senator Barack Obama, 47, has already secured the centre-left
party's nomination after the long primary election season, but some
supporters of his narrowly defeated rival Hillary Clinton are holding
out against her emotional appeal Tuesday evening for them to swing
their votes to Obama in the interest of party unity.
The practice in which delegates from each state vote to formally
name the party's candidate has become largely ceremonial, and
candidates that lost the primary elections have freed their delegates
to support the prospective nominee. The move to even read Clinton's
name during the vote at all aims to defuse tension from a historic
series of state-by-state primaries pitting Clinton and Obama.
Over the past two days, Clinton's supporters have been passing
around a petition on the convention floor in the hopes of getting 800
delegate signatures and using an obscure party rule that could force
a full state-by-state roll call vote, John West, a Clinton volunteer
from Illinois who is helping to organize the effort told Deutsche
Presse-Agentur dpa.
If they get the needed number, they will give the petition to
Clinton and let her decide what to do with it, West said. One and a
half hours before the formal nominating session opens at 1900 GMT,
Clinton is expected to have one final meeting with her delegates and
urge them to vote for Obama.
"I want to make sure I get to vote! What is the purpose of this
convention if it's not to vote," Maryland senator Mary Boergers told
dpa.
All told, Clinton harvested more than 1,800 delegate votes during
the brutal six-month-long primary season - the furthest any woman has
come in securing a major party nomination.
The delegates represented 18 million votes who her supporters say
will feel abandoned if Obama, Democratic National Committee chair
Howard Dean and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi
have their way.
Obama's supporters are said to be pushing for a nomination by
acclimation which would circumvent the embarassing prospect of each
state casting so many votes for Clinton. Obama's spokeswoman Jenny
Backus was quoted by Politico.com as saying they will support a
state-by-state roll call, but Pelosi, as convention chair, could
overrule that.
The vote is a traditional part of Democratic presidential
conventions and allows each state to boast of its accomplishments and
history and place its favourite candidate in the national limelight.
It's important in mobilizing party loyalists in the November 4
general elections.
Allida Black, another Clinton delegate from Virginia who is ready
to go to work for Obama after Hillary's inspirational speech Tuesday
night, said she doesn't understand what Obama's campaign is afraid
of.
"Hillary won't win all the delegates and this won't be a
landslide," Black said, adding that many of Clinton's supporters will
likely vote for Obama. "Afterwards we'll all go out and smash
(presumptive Republican nominee John) McCain."
Boergers and Allida say their votes would not be against Obama but
the fulfillment of an obligation they have to the voters who elected
them as Clinton delegates.
Boergers also feels it's unfair that the Obama campaign has laid
the responsibility to create party unity at the foot of Clinton and
husband, former president Bill Clinton instead of directly reaching
out to her supporters.
"I am so tired of people saying it's up to Hillary and Bill to
bring people together," Boergers said, adding that they've already
gone the extra mile.
Hillary's supporters already had to make use of another little-
used party rule to force their candidate to submit her name for
nomination. They collected 300 signatures on a petition requesting
her name be put up on Wednesday's ballot.


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