US News
Pressure for Clinton to quit; Michigan election deal offered (Roundup)
By DPA
May 9, 2008, 0:34 GMT

Washington - Pressure was mounting Thursday for Hillary Clinton to quit the Democratic presidential race and give Barack Obama time to unite the party ahead of a general election fight in November.

Michigan Democrats, meanwhile, said they hashed out a compromise that would give the state a voice in the hard-fought presidential battle. Michigan flouted national party rules by holding a primary on January 15, earlier than allowed.

Their proposal 'splits the difference' between the demands of Obama and Clinton in the long-running dispute and will be presented to the Democratic National Committee at the end of the month, the state party said in a statement.

The Los Angeles Times carried an editorial with the headline 'Clinton can't win,' and the Washington Post wrote that Clinton has 'no plausible route to victory' after unfavourable primary results in North Carolina and Indiana.

Obama on Tuesday handily won North Carolina, while Clinton barely edged him out in Indiana - an outcome that allowed Obama to add to his delegate lead with only six smaller contests remaining.

The Illinois senator was not among those pushing Clinton to exit, though he did say he was looking forward to a general election battle with presumptive Republican nominee John McCain.

'I don't want to be jinxed. We've still got some more work to do,' Obama told broadcaster CNN.

Since Tuesday's results, Obama has reportedly picked up the support of another handful super delegates - party elite and elected officials who hold about one-fifth of the total delegate votes to the nominating convention in August.

A candidate needs 2,025 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination. Obama leads by 1,850 to 1,696 for Clinton, according to a tally by realclearpolitics.com.

The Michigan compromise would only give Clinton a 10-delegate shift in her favour.

Clinton and her surrogates remained defiant Thursday, promising that the race would move on to West Virginia's primary on Tuesday and beyond.

'We can still win this thing if you vote for her big enough,' former president Bill Clinton said at a rally in West Virginia.

George McGovern, the Democrats' 1972 presidential nominee who lost to Richard Nixon, switched his support from Clinton to Obama on Wednesday and called on the former first lady to quit the race.

McGovern said it was time for the Democratic Party to unite ahead of a difficult general election race against Arizona Senator McCain, the presumptive Republican Party nominee.

Clinton, a New York senator, held rallies Thursday across three states - West Virginia, South Dakota and Oregon. She planned stops Friday in Kentucky, which votes along with Oregon on May 20.

Obama met with members of Congress and held fundraising events Thursday in Washington before heading to Oregon for the weekend.

The final primaries in the state-by-state voting, which began January 3 in Iowa, are June 1 in Puerto Rico and June 3 in South Dakota and Montana.