Projo Politics Blog

Although Sen. Barack Obama's near-miss in Indiana and his crushing victory in North Carolina have made Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's pursuit a majority of Democratic convention delegates increasingly implausible, Sen. Jack Reed is one uncommitted party leader who remains unwilling to push her to quit the presidential race.

The Rhode Island senior senator is a superdelegate, one of the unpledged party leaders who hold the key to a nominating majority that neither candidate appears able to attain by the close of the caucus and primary season on June 3.

"I have not put an internal deadline'' on endorsing a Democrat for president, Reed told an interviewer this morning, "but the reality is we can't go much past the middle of June.''

Reed reiterated his intent to let the remaining contests play out-- starting with next Tuesday's West Virginia primary.

A great factor, he said, "is who is best positioned to win in November. This is not about selecting a nominee, it is about selecting a president.''

Reed remains confident that after the remaining votes are cast, it won't take long for Democrats to unite behind a standard-bearer in the general election contest against Republican Sen. John McCain.

U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island’s most prominent Clinton supporter, said he hopes she continues running, despite trailing in the race for delegates. “She’s entitled to fight on and I think she has a good message and I think the process is a good one.’’

But when asked what he’d tell Clinton if she called and reported she was mulling whether to stay in or pull out for the sake of party unity and possibly a chance to be vice president, Whitehouse said, “I’d probably tell her that she should do what’s in her heart.’’

He said she has put an enormous amount of work into a fight in which she has faced a hostile media environment and that she has been steeled by “operating in the toxic environment of Republican smear politics.‘’ Whitehouse declared, “I think she knows very well the position that she’s in and I trust her to make that decision.’’

Meanwhile, one of Obama’s best-known supporters, Lincoln Chafee, a former U.S. senator from Rhode Island and Republican-turned-independent, said he believes the Democratic race is over and can’t understand why Clinton doesn’t grasp the math of the competition for delegates.

As for Clinton setting off on a fresh round of campaigning today, a baffled Chafee asked, “What is the strategy? It eludes me.’’

-- John E. Mulligan, Journal Washington bureau, and M. Charles Bakst, Journal political columnist

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