Clinton supporters in South Dakota turning pragmatic

SIOUX FALLS, S.D.

Determined and undaunted by the lengthening odds against her, Hillary Rodham Clinton brought her presidential campaign to South Dakota on Thursday, vowing to fight on through June 3, when the state's Democratic voters will take center stage on the final primary day of the season.

"You have the chance to cast your votes and have them count in determining who will be our nominee," she told hundreds of supporters who jammed an airplane hangar for a fly-in rally between Clinton campaign stops in West Virginia and Oregon. "Some have suggested we should stop the vote now ..."

"NOOOO," some bellowed.

Smiling, Clinton told them: "The more democracy the better."

But several backers who came to the rally sounded both resigned that her candidacy remains a long shot and resentful that, in their eyes, she is being unfairly pushed out of the race -- sentiments that also have been evident among her supporters in Minnesota since Tuesday's primaries in North Carolina and Indiana.

"I think she shouldn't quit just because some people on CNN tell her to," said Marina Lewis, who brought her two preschool-age sons from Elko, Minn., to see Clinton in Sioux Falls. "But you just never know what will happen. This could well be my last chance to see her -- or maybe I'll get to go to her inauguration."

While the New York senator's campaign has been buffeted by suggestions that she should quit, she showed no signs of heeding the conventional wisdom chorus. "If you will come out and support me, I will work my heart out for you," she said.

Obama has key backers

Just as Clinton faces a sharply uphill battle for the nomination, she also appears to face steep odds in South Dakota.

Barack Obama has long been favored to win the state, where he has mounted a superior ground game and has the backing of the state's party establishment, most notably former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. And Wednesday's call by former South Dakota Sen. George McGovern for Clinton to abandon her bid also stung, said Bob Burns, chairman of the Political Science Department at South Dakota State University.

"He's got pretty solid support of our superdelegates and that seems to have been very persuasive with the general public," Burns said. "I think Obama's managed to capture the imagination of delegates here."

During her 40-minute speech, Clinton stuck to her bread-and-butter stump message, highlighting her plan to end the war in Iraq while taking steps to focus on the economy, energy, education and health care.

She pivoted from her recent attacks aimed at Obama, mentioning him only once by name when she defended her call for a federal gasoline-tax holiday. "While Senator Obama has said it would only save a family $70, for a lot of folks I know, $70 is real money," she said. And, as she closed, she said the Nov. 4 election "should be about solutions, not speeches."

Although people in the hangar were enthusiastic Clintonites, their energy level was more subdued than in earlier stages of the campaign. Several attempts to wind up a "HILL-A-REE" chant fizzled in less than a minute. And scores headed for the doors long before her speech was finished.

"She needs to hang in there, but she has to pick up some of those superdelegates or it won't make any difference," said Eunice Herrick, who drove 90 miles from her home near Marshall, Minn. "It's gotten much too difficult for her."

Sioux Falls resident Don Thompson supports Clinton because "she's an intelligent woman with a lot of experience. The thing is, she could beat [Republican John] McCain, but I don't know about the nomination anymore. What I'm afraid of is that she won't make it."

Bittersweet Minnesota mood

The same bittersweet, almost elegiac, mood that suffused Clinton's rally can also be heard in the voices of her supporters in Minnesota.

"My hope that I'll have the opportunity to vote for a woman for president is probably dimming," said Marilyn Bryant, a longtime feminist leader in the state. "She's shown wonderful, remarkable stamina to stick with it. She ain't going to throw in the towel and I'd like to see her keep going."

Rick Stafford, a Democratic National Committee member and superdelegate for Clinton, said he believes "a lot was decided Tuesday night. Her ability to get the nomination has become a real reach. The math just isn't there, in either the popular votes or the delegates."

He predicted that superdelegates will move en masse toward Obama before mid-June, "if it isn't over in the next seven to 10 days.

"During that period, she's got to do some serious soul searching."

Nancy Larson, a DFL activist and superdelegate, said that when the returns rolled in from Indiana and North Carolina, "I thought to myself, 'the writing's on the wall.'"

Initially torn between Obama and Clinton, Larson recently chose Obama, but she is still fending off Clinton appeals; the last persuasion call came on Saturday. "It's hard to see the point anymore," she said.

Larson said she has found herself being turned off by Clinton's increasingly strident pronouncements. "The threat to 'obliterate Iran' just killed me," she said. "And the gas tax holiday -- that was pure pandering." When Clinton turned up the volume again, saying she would take on OPEC, the cartel of oil-producing countries, Larson said she was on the phone to the campaign. "I told them, 'What's going on? She's sounding like Goldwater.'"

Despite Obama's stumbles and Clinton's second wind and newly populist message, Larson said Clinton has been unable to change the basic pattern of the race. "Obama's still got more delegates, more popular vote and more money," she said. "That hasn't changed. She's hit her limit."

Barbara Scotford, a longtime DFLer from Minneapolis, initially supported Clinton, but has switched her allegiance to Obama "as it seemed like her campaign had become so darned calculated, like it was just a giant business."

But a continuing Clinton-Obama battle doesn't faze Scotford "because it gives the Republicans less time to fight with us, and that's not such a bad thing."

Hubert (Buck) Humphrey IV, Clinton's campaign manager in Minnesota, tried to put the best face on her prospects, but added, "it's going to be tough."

"We're still plugging away, making calls into the last states," he said. "I know the pundits are all saying it's over, but she's come back before. I'm still holding out hope."

For all the speculation that Clinton might drop out of the race, "South Dakotans are kind of hoping she won't," Burns said. "We'll get a little bit of the national spotlight on June 3, when we first anticipated that the primary would be totally meaningless because it's so late. If she drops out, we'll be meaningless again."

Staff writer Patricia Lopez contributed to this report.

Bob von Sternberg • 612-673-7184