Local Dems split about Clinton exit

LYNN – Self-described loyal Democrats are dividing over the question of how soon presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton should pull the plug on her campaign.”I get a sense it’s gone far enough. I think she has to bow out and she will,” said Richard Vitali, a local attorney who campaigned last year for former presidential candidate Joseph Biden.Vitali thinks Barack Obama’s solid win in last week’s North Carolina primary election marked a turning point in Obama’s and Clinton’s protracted race for delegates.But Agnes Ricko, a long-time local Democrat who is going to her party’s late August convention in Denver, wants to see who wins today’s primary in West Virginia.”Let’s wait until June 3 until everything plays out. I’m very much a believer in allowing people to cast their vote. If the roles were reversed, I would never say Barack Obama should get out of this race,” Ricko said.Although she won last week’s Indiana primary and last month’s Pennsylvania primary, Clinton has not matched or outpaced Obama in the delegate quest.Ricko said the Democratic party will be split between Obama supporters and disgruntled Clinton backers if Clinton leaves before the primary balloting process is finished.Vitali said Democrats are already deeply divided and thinks a speedy Clinton exit will give party members more time to rally around Obama in preparation for several months of campaigning against unofficial Republican nominee John McCain.”When tried and true Democrats say they could never vote for Obama and that they will vote for McCain, there is obviously ill will. It’s time for the healing to begin.”Party members and political observers are looking to the largely undecided block of party leaders known as super delegates to tip the balance once and for all to Obama or Clinton.U.S. Rep. John Tierney has not committed to one of the candidates. In March he predicted super delegates will help choose a nominee at the convention.”As I have stated previously, I have not announced my vote, and I have no present plans to do so in the immediate future. A so-called “super delegate” is, I believe, expected to weigh and balance one’s own preference for any candidate, the preference expressed in a district or state, viability or elect-ability, and the potential of super delegates to weigh in at a convention in a way that would add to an eventual nominee’s elect-ability by affecting any margin of convention victory,” Tierney said in a statement he released last week.