Hillary Clinton's White House dreams were virtually snuffed out on Sunday with the Democratic party deciding to count the delegates from Florida and Michigan.
NEW YORK: Hillary Clinton's White House dreams were virtually snuffed out on Sunday with the Democratic party deciding to count the delegates from Florida and Michigan with halved voting rights bringing rival Barack Obama within striking distance of the presidential nomination as voting was held for the last of three primaries.
As the move by Clinton, 60, to push the party to bring on board the two states, which she had won but were disqualified because they preponed their primaries, backfired, her camp vowed to take the fight right to the party convention in Denver in August which is to select the nominee.
The decision left 46-year-old Obama with 2,052 delegates, 66 short of the nomination and Clinton 1,877.5.
Voting began in Puerto Rico which has 86 delegates at stake along with Montana and South Dakota, the last two primaries to be held on Tuesday.
The 30-member Rules Committee endorsed in an open meeting last night the compromise which was struck behind the closed doors giving a major blow to chances of Clinton but boos and jeers from her supporters showed the party would need much hard work to heal the wounds created by the decision.
The talk from the members that the Rules Committee's move would lead to unity in the party brought forth mocking laughter from a section of the audience and "McCain in 08" yelled a woman when the vote on the compromise was taken. John McCain is the presumptive Republican candidate for the November polls.
Describing the decision as hijacking of the people's choice, Clinton's Chief adviser Harold Ickes told the committee just before the final vote that "Clinton has instructed him to reserve her right to take this to the credentials committee" which meets in July. But some said that the fight could go on to the convention floor.
Ickes said it was hijacking as the committee has assigned delegates to Obama which he never won.
Obama's advisers said that he is very near to declaring the victory and would have the support of bosses of the party.
With the momentum in his favout the African-American Senator appeared keen to distance himself from any controversy as he promptly resigned from Chicago's Trinity United Church along with his wife following its pastor's racially tinged and politically explosive sermons.
Obama had attended the church for two decades, but two controversial videos that surfaced recently involving Obama's longtime spiritual guide, Rev Jeremiah A Wright, and another pastor, led the Presidential hopeful to distance himself from the Trinity United.
One of the videos showed his pastor indulging in "anti-American" rhetoric and in the other another pastor tried to run down Hillary Clinton by making racial and gender related remarks.
In a letter to church's current pastor the Rev Otis Moss, Obama explained that his resignation follows the controversial remarks of his former pastor Wright.
But at a news conference, he denied that the resignation was politically motivated and suggested the reason was that Wright's sermons were being dissected.
The former pastor had in one of the sermons blamed the United States policies for the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York and Washington in which about 3000 people were killed.
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