Clinton to acknowledge Obama has enough delegates to clinch nomination
Update: Clinton camp says it won't concede
Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials told the Associated Press, effectively ending her bid to be the nation's first female president.
The former first lady will stop short of formally suspending or ending her race in her speech in New York City. She will pledge to continue to speak out on issues like health care. But for all intents and purposes, the two senior officials said, the campaign is over.
Clinton's campaign has pushed back swiftly against the AP report. Chairman Terry McAuliffe went on CNN within minutes of its release to call the report "untrue," and her campaign released a formal statement making the same point.
"The AP story is incorrect. Senator Clinton will not concede the nomination this evening," the statement said.
Of course, nowhere in the AP's original dispatch did they say Clinton would concede the nomination or end her campaign.
Most campaign staff will be let go and will be paid through June 15, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge her plans.
The advisers said Clinton has made a strategic decision to not formally end her campaign, giving her leverage to negotiate with Obama on various matters including a possible vice presidential nomination for her. She also wants to press him on issues he should focus on in the fall, such as health care. (Universal health care, Clinton's signature issue as first lady in the 1990s, was a point of dispute between Obama and the New York senator during their epic nomination fight.)
Before denying the AP report Tuesday, McAuliffe went on NBC's Today Show to say that Clinton would be ready to concede the nomination as soon as Obama locked up the 2,118 delegates to secure a majority in the Democratic race.
Obama is about 40 delegates from that number now, and he's expected to pick up 15 delegates from primaries in Montana and South Dakota Tuesday. Additional reports have indicated that Obama would be ready to unveil dozens of Congressional superdelegates as soon as polls in those states close. After securing the endorsement of Rep. James Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House, several others are expected to follow into the Obama camp.
DEVELOPING...
With wire reports
| 
