It’s officially official. After more than a year of campaigning and 57 primaries and caucuses, Sen. Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.
But somebody forgot to tell his Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Clinton gathered a number of key donors and supporters for a speech in New York last night and did not concede the race, acknowledge Obama’s accomplishment and was introduced as “the next President of the United States.”
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“This has been a long campaign and I will be making no decisions tonight.”Clinton told the crowd as she was met with applause. She also said she would consult with party leaders and supporters before deciding how to move forward.
The speech drew harsh criticism from a number of pundits and bloggers.
CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin called her refusal “deranged narcissism,” while Huffington Post blogger Tom Hayden labeled it “political schizophrenia.”
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While Clinton has not made a “decision,” it seems that one has been made for her—by the voters in the Democratic primary and the Democratic Super Delegates. As of this morning, Obama has 2,156 delegates, putting him over the “magic number” of 2,118.
In a move that some call prophetic, Obama, now the presumptive nominee, will give his acceptance speech on August 28—45 years to the day that Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
