Text size:

Clinton may seek roll-call vote at Dems' convention

BY TOM BRUNE AND JANIE LORBER | tom.brune@newsday.com; janie.lorber@newsday.com

August 8, 2008

WASHINGTON - Egged on by die-hard supporters, Hillary Rodham Clinton is giving every indication that she will not go quietly or meekly into the Democratic National Convention in Denver later this month.

But amid the standoff between Clinton and Barack Obama, her husband, former President Bill Clinton, was given a prime speaking role on Aug. 27, the same night as the vice presidential nominee, CNN reported last night.

Even as Hillary Clinton heads to Las Vegas today in her first solo trip to campaign for Obama, she is holding out the prospect of a drawn-out nominating vote that experts say at best would be a distraction and at worst a disaster.

Though Obama is to be formally nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate in just three weeks, Clinton yesterday refused to say whether she'll demand that roll-call vote to highlight the delegates she won in the hotly contested primaries earlier this year.

Some experts say Clinton's refusal might stem from lingering hard feelings from the primaries, but others say she's probably just pressing her case in negotiations with the Obama camp.

Obama yesterday acknowledged that a roll-call vote, with Clinton's name placed in nomination next to his, is still in play for the convention. The vote is to be Wednesday, the day before Obama is to deliver his acceptance speech at Invesco Field.

"As is true in all conventions, we're still working out the mechanics, the coordination," Obama said yesterday. Asked if he's amenable to a roll call, he said, "I didn't say that."

In a Web chat yesterday, Clinton evaded a question from a supporter about whether her name should be placed in nomination. "I know that there have been a lot of questions on this subject," Clinton said. But her answer was, in effect, that she and Obama are working on it.

"I want to assure everyone we are working together with Senator Obama's campaign and the DNC," she wrote, "and I am confident we will have a successful and unified convention in Denver."

That echoed a joint statement Obama and Clinton put out Wednesday night after a video showed Clinton hinting a roll-call vote might be useful.

"We do not want any Democrat, either in the hall or in the stadium or at home, walking away saying, 'Well, you know, I'm just not satisfied, I'm not happy,'" she said on the tape.

But Obama said, "I don't think we're looking for catharsis. I think what we're looking for is energy and excitement."

Clinton suspended her campaign June 7 after winning 18 million votes but trailing by 129 pledged delegates.

Bill Clinton has given lukewarm support for Obama. Hillary backers are planning a march for her in Denver. She is expected to deliver the convention keynote address Tuesday.

"She's definitely going to play a critical role in the convention," said Obama and convention aide Jenny Backus.

But experts say the mood is reminiscent of 1980, when President Jimmy Carter and challenger Sen. Edward Kennedy ended a bitter primary fight with a convention roll-call vote, followed that fall by Carter's loss in the general election.

"It's hardly unprecedented for a defeated candidate to want to give her supporters one last piece of red meat," said Lee Sigelman, a politics professor at George Washington University.