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Clinton to Suspend Campaign Saturday
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In the e-mail she sent this morning, Clinton wrote that she "will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise."
Endorsements for Obama continued rolling in from party officials, senators and House leaders. He was greeted warmly at the AIPAC conference, where sentiments might have tilted against him among audience members wary about the depth of his support for Israel.
The Republican National Committee did its best to keep Clinton in the picture, unveiling new advertisements highlighting her criticism of Obama from the nomination fight.
"That's the sad part of it," said Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. "The story today and the next couple of days should be 'Senator Barack Obama has won the nomination to lead the Democratic Party's ticket for the White House, the first African American to do so.' We should be reveling in that."
Johnson, the BET founder, angered Obama backers when he asked House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) to mobilize black lawmakers behind a "dream ticket" campaign. "I believe that the most important step that you can take now is to encourage the Congressional Black Caucus to urge Senator Obama to select Senator Hillary Clinton as his Vice Presidential running mate," he wrote.
After a lunchtime discussion of Johnson's letter with her caucus, Kilpatrick made it clear that the black caucus had no intention of taking up the "dream ticket" cause.
In an interview, Johnson said he talked specifically with Clinton on Tuesday about his intentions. "She said, 'Go ahead,' " Johnson recalled.
But inside Obama's campaign, there is a distinct coolness to the idea of adding Clinton to ticket, in part because of the complication of determining the role for former president Bill Clinton. The efforts underscored how difficult it will be for Obama to move beyond his long, rancorous struggle with Hillary Clinton for the nomination, even as Democratic Party leaders tried yesterday to rally around him.
Obama supporters feared that continuing questions about Clinton's next moves will escalate into a "second campaign" that will be put to rest only when the presumptive Democratic nominee chooses a running mate.
Obama and Clinton gave back-to-back speeches yesterday morning at the AIPAC conference, expressing their commitment to the security of the Jewish state. Clinton used the occasion to give some acknowledgment that her struggle for the nomination was over.
Speaking of the need for a "Democratic president," she assured the audience: "I know, I know Senator Obama understands what is at stake here. It has been an honor to contest these primaries with him. It is an honor to call him my friend. And let me be very clear, I know Senator Obama will be a good friend to Israel."
Obama tried to broaden the discussion of his vice presidential pick beyond Clinton, tapping former deputy attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. and Caroline Kennedy to help former Fannie Mae chief executive James A. Johnson vet potential running mates.
