Tea Bird

Clinton • politics

How She Left

By matt carter ⋅ June 6, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Hillary pleaded for more time.  Her Senate colleagues acquiesced, but her House supporters told her that it was over.

[Top House supporter Rep. Charlie] Rangel then stepped in. Repeating his public comments from earlier in the afternoon, he stressed the need for party unity and expressed concern that New York Reps. Yvette Clarke, Gregory Meeks, and Edolphus Towns — whose heavily black districts had voted for Obama — could face viable primary challenges from pro-Obama candidates if they didn’t move quickly to get behind the presumptive nominee.

“She wanted to talk to supporters and get advice, so she got advice,” Rangel told reporters on Thursday. “Love and affection doesn’t have a damn thing to do with counting votes.”

Clinton understood the problem.

“Hillary would never want to do something that would impact another person’s chances and jeopardize their seats,” said someone familiar with the call.

On the call, Rangel was firm.

He suggested holding an event where Clinton could endorse Barack Obama. “That way we’re endorsing Barack through you,” he told her.

“What I was worried about was, I couldn’t explain it,” Rangel said the next day. “‘You want unity, you want someone to win, but you don’t endorse? It doesn’t work out.”

Clinton ended the call on a note of gratitude. “Thank you all so much. You mean so much to me. We’ll get moving with Charlie’s idea,” she said, according to a source.

Tags: Clinton, democratic primary, Democrats, endorsement