Hillary Clinton racked up another primary win, this time in Puerto Rico where she beat the frontrunner Barack Obama by a more than 2-1 margin:
In a telephone interview with The Washington Post after her victory by a 2 to 1 ratio over Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), Clinton stressed that she will press forward through the final contests of the primary season on Tuesday, brushed aside the idea that she was searching for an exit strategy, and said she will continue to weigh both her immediate- and longer-term options in the race.
Asked whether she will challenge a Democratic National Committee ruling on Saturday awarding Obama some disputed Michigan delegates even though his name did not appear on the state's ballot, Clinton said she had not yet decided. In her victory speech Sunday afternoon, Clinton again claimed triumph in the overall popular vote in the primaries and held out hope that she would still see a reversal of fortune.
"I have four words for you: Te quiero Puerto Rico" ("I love you, Puerto Rico"), Clinton said shortly after the polls closed at a rally where hundreds of supporters packed into a seaside resort to catch a glimpse of the candidate.
The setting underscored the distance Clinton had traveled since her defeat in Iowa five months earlier: falling from front-runner to long shot, spending tens of millions to campaign in dozens of states and winding up in a Spanish-speaking territory that cannot vote in the general election.
Following her defeat before the Rules Committee where the Democrats have agreed to seat all the delegates from Michigan and Florida but have them count for only 1/2, Clinton's options are narrowing considerably.
She could take the issue to the convetention where, because she won't have enough supporters she will lose any argument about giving full repesentation to the delegates. She may have some success in challenging the ruling that Obama is to receive all the "uncommitted" Michigan delegates - but it won't be enough to get her very far.
All she appears ready to do for the moment is do her best in the Tuesday Montana and South Dakota primaries and then hope that something comes up to derail Obama's candidacy. That's all she has now and most Democrats are saying that it would have to be something truly damaging for them to change their votes.
So the campaign will end and calls will go out for Clinton to retire. Whether she heeds those calls may tell the tale for the rest of the campaign. The thinking is, unless she drops out soon, the divisions of the primary season will not have had enough time to heal and Democrats will be a divided party going into the fall campaign.
Decision time - Clinton.
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