By Patrick Healy – New York Times
Published: 05-22-08
N.Y. Senator believes she can still be the Democratic nominee
Rebuffing associates who have suggested that she end her candidacy Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has made it clear to her camp in recent days that she will stay in the race until June because she believes she can still be the nominee — and barring that so she can depart with some final goals accomplished.
Mrs. Clinton has disagreed with suggestions made directly to her by a few friends recently that her continued candidacy was deepening splits within the Democratic Party and damaging Senator Barack Obama’s chances of emerging as a formidable nominee.
She has also disputed the notion that she was unintentionally fostering a racial divide with white voters in some states overwhelmingly supporting her.
Rather in private conversations and in interviews Mrs. Clinton has begun asserting that she believes sexism rather than racism has cast a shadow over the primary fight a point some of her supporters have made for months. Advisers say that continuing her candidacy is partly a means to show her supporters — especially young women — that she is not a quitter and will not be pushed around.
Campaigning in New Hampshire and Indiana this year Mrs. Clinton endured taunts from passers-by who questioned her abilities because she is a woman and mocked her husband’s affair with a White House intern. Yet Mrs. Clinton has also benefited from the strong support of white voters in many states including some who have said that race was a factor in their support.
Campaigning with his wife in Kentucky on Tuesday former President Bill Clinton also weighed in saying he believed there had been “moments of gender bias” in the campaign though he added that he thought people had become more comfortable with the idea of a woman in the White House.
And in her victory speech in Louisville Ky. on Tuesday night Mrs. Clinton made a pointed appeal telling her supporters she would keep campaigning until there was a Democratic nominee — “whoever she may be.”
Mrs. Clinton is also focused on some tangible goals by staying in the race: she believes that racking up more victories delegates and votes will give her and her supporters more leverage this month at a Democratic National Committee rules meeting to advocate for seating the delegates from the unofficial primaries in Florida and Michigan.
