Our correspondent Andrea Mitchell reporting tonight that 23 members of Congress, strong Clinton supporters, calling her today, saying they would have to throw their support to Senator Obama; Senator Clinton replying she thought that made sense, adding that she would have another meeting with supporters on Friday to discuss the next steps. No indication if those steps will be the termination of her campaign or merely its suspension. Her decision, the New York Times reporting tonight, came after a day of telephone conversations with supporters on Capital Hill on what she should do now, now that Mr. Obama had claimed enough delegates to be able to clinch the nomination. Mrs. Clinton had initially said she had wanted to wait before making any decision, but her aids said that in conversations some of her closest supporters had said it was urgent that she step aside.
--
MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, on Clinton supporters' call for Clinton to endorse Obama the day after the final primaries; June 4, 2008;Hillary Clinton
» Hillary Clinton - all quotes »
[The conference call] expanded because more members of Congress wanted to get in on it. They wanted to sound off on Hillary Clinton's inclination to stretch this out, to wait until she heard those emails from her supporters, to give herself space and time. She wanted to use leverage, and she thought she would have more leverage if she waited. In fact her leverage was dissipating day by day because these members of Congress ... were telling us that Senators were coming up [to Charlie Rangle, asking to join a conference call], I want to switch over but I can't without her releasing us. So there was a lot of frustration and embarassment and anger among her supporters on the Hill. ... House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issuing that letter saying it had to be done by Friday. ... I'm persuaded that this was pressure from her supporters, that Barack Obama really did respect her desire for the time to unwind this. I think there was a lot of discomfort and displeasure with the way she addressed her supporters last night. They were not happy about [Clinton campaign chairman] Terry McAuliffe announcing ... , "This is the next president of the United States." That really rubbed them the wrong way. And Charlie Rangle said openly and on the record ... , "I didn't like what I heard. It was not gracious. Once he hit the magic number, she should have conceded and endorsed, and it put us in a terrible spot."
Hillary Clinton
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s latest campaign finance report, published Wednesday night, appeared even to her most stalwart supporters and donors to be a road map of her political and management failings.
Hillary Clinton
You may have noticed that Senator Obama's supporters have been saying some pretty nasty things about western Pennsylvania lately. And you know, I couldn't agree with them more.
John McCain
And I'm not going to apologize for it, I'm just quoting Emanuel. It's in the news. I think the news is that he's out there calling Obama's number one supporters effing retards. So now there's going to be a meeting. There's going to be a retard summit at the White House, much like the beer summit between Obama and Gates and that cop in Cambridge.
Rush Limbaugh
Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington. I have spoken to Senator Obama and informed him of my decision and have asked him to join me. We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we must meet until this crisis is resolved. I am directing my campaign to work with the Obama campaign and the Commission on Presidential Debates to delay Friday night's debate until we have taken action to address this crisis.
John McCain
Clinton, Hillary
Clinton, Kate
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z