Set to declare victory against Hillary Clinton, African American Senator Barack Obama's aides went on an overdrive to shepard super delegates to his camp.
NEW YORK: Set to declare victory against Hillary Clinton, African American Senator Barack Obama's aides went on an overdrive to shepard super delegates to his camp with a marathon roller-coaster contest for the Democratic Presidential nomination ending on Tuesday.
The 46-year-old who is on the verge of scripting history by being the first black Presidential nominee for a major US party, spent his time working the phones, as did surrogates, aides and party officials, to get endorsement from enough superdelegates, influential partymen and elected officials, so that he could declare victory by tomorrow.
As South Dakota and Montana prepared to hold the last primaries, a despondent Clinton's campaign was reconciling to a defeat in the delegate count though the 60-year-old former first lady gave no indication of quitting the race and had adopted a wait and watch policy.
"I'm just very grateful we kept this campaign going until South Dakota would have the last word," she said. Her husband and key campaigner former President Bill Clinton, however, strongly suggested that she might drop out while lashing out at the media for their "biased" coverage of Obama.
"This may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind," he said.
Some analysts said Clinton would be watching whether Obama is able to get enough delegates to win the nomination tonight and would then decide her course of action.
Obama is currently 45 delegates short of the magic figure of 2,118. According to Obama campaign, he would require only about 25 super delegates after results from South Dakota and Montana, where 31 delegates are up for garbs, are out which will not be difficult to garner.
Obama's supporters want the super delegates to declare their support immediately after the primaries are over so that he could claim victory but reports said some suggestions were made that he hold on until Wednesday to give time to Clinton to concede that she has lost the race and announce her dropping out.
Some of the undecided super delegates met in Washington to chart their course. Publicly, they said there was no decision. But a few had said they would make their preference known only after the last primaries are over.
Obama is in a hurry to declare victory as he wants to go before the powerful lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee tomorrow as party nominee to refute the statements of presumptive Republican candidate John McCain.
McCain had strongly criticised Obama, charging that the Democrat's policies would not be good for the security of either the United States or Israel.
Meanwhile, the party bosses and Obama were trying to move into the next phase to bring about reconciliation between the two camps so that the party could fight the November presidential elections in unison.
Analysts were agreed that Obama will need Clinton's support to win over women and white workers votes and also swing States which are necessary for the victory in November.
Clinton, meanwhile, was coming to her home in New York State where, media reports said, she has invited her fund raisers and supporters to deliver her final campaign speech conceding that she has lost the race and bringing to an end the emotional and often acrimonious campaign.
But there was no confirmation from her campaign.
Analysts as also party leaders were speculating whether Clinton would accept vice presidentship if offered by Obama.
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