Senator Obama Close to Clinching the Democratic Presidential Nomination
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: It is going to be an exciting historic night for all of us. You're going to want to stay put and watch. In the meantime, let's continue our special coverage right now with LOU DOBBS TONIGHT. Lou is standing by at the CNN Election Center -- Lou.</s>LOU DOBBS, HOST, "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT": Wolf, this is when the real excitement starts, right now. The race for the Democratic nomination is at a turning point. Tonight will be a decision point. Senator Obama appears to be on the verge of clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, but voters, apparently, have already had a belly full of much of the partisan blabber in both parties. Voters now want a real discussion of the real issues facing this country. We'll have the latest polls on those issues, and we'll begin the discussion tonight from an independent perspective and we'll bring you the very latest from the presidential campaign trail, these final primary elections today, and much more, all of that straight ahead.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is</s>LOU DOBBS TONIGHT: news, debate, and opinion for Tuesday, June 3. Live from New York, Lou Dobbs.</s>DOBBS: Good evening, everybody. Senator Clinton tonight appears to be on the verge of quitting the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Senator Clinton today said she is now open to the idea of being Senator Obama's running mate. Her campaign said Senator Clinton would step aside were Obama to win enough delegates to secure the nomination. Senator Obama tonight is only a few delegates short of clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, and this as voting ends in the final two primaries of this presidential campaign season in South Dakota and in Montana. We'll have extensive coverage for you, and we begin tonight with Candy Crowley in New York, where Senator Clinton is about to speak with her supporters -- Candy.</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Lou, one of the things you will not hear from Hillary Clinton tonight is "I quit" or "I concede." Everyone who I talked to who has talked to her today say that she is going to take her time with this, that tonight you will hear her talk to her supporters about where they have come from, about the issues that are important to her. They understand what the reality is in the Clinton campaign, but she is going to take her time. I've been told very directly that she will not concede tonight, so what's the game plan here? First of all, she kind of wants to decide how she's going to do this. I'm told she's very aware of the history of being the first woman to ever really get this far in terms of getting the Democratic nomination, so there is that. There is also -- there are still, believe it or not, some delegates being picked in some of these state conventions that are still going on. They wonder what sort of signal it sends if she says, OK, I'm out of it. So not tonight, Lou, but certainly, they understand what's going on here. About the vice presidency, Hillary Clinton has been reaching out to supporters today that have been with her all along. That has, in fact, from the very beginning the New York delegation. In a phone call, a conference call with them today, a number of them expressed the opinion that she needed to be on the ticket with Obama, that she would help bring in Latino voters that, sort of thing. Then, I'm told, Hillary Clinton gave kind of a long answer to that and at the end said "I would be open to that. I would be open to the number two slot." So whether or not she would actually take it, whether or not he would offer it are two very big things, but I can tell you that Hillary Clinton has very passionate donors, she has very passionate backers, many of whom are already talking about starting up some sort of online effort to push Barack Obama to choose her. Very, very dicey place for Barack Obama to be just now seems to be in grasp for that nomination -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: Well, Senator Obama will need to heal the Democratic Party, and what better way than to put Senator Clinton on that ticket as his vice presidential candidate, right?</s>CROWLEY: Well, I mean, that's certainly the thought. I mean, it certainly would bring unity to the party. The question is, if your main goal -- and it is this -- is to win the November election, does that bring him victory? Are there things in the Clinton background that have not been looked at, particularly since Bill Clinton has left office, who's donated to their libraries, are there potholes along the way to that? I mean it is far too big of a question right now, both in terms of the electability and what she would bring to the ticket and what might be sort of the drawbacks of her. And I can tell you that while they do have Jim Johnson (ph) in place over at the Barack Obama campaign, who has started up that whole vice presidential search team, they are certainly not far enough along to be looking at anybody, saying, OK, this is the person, but Barack Obama has always said she'd be on anybody's short list. We've got a way to go.</s>DOBBS: Oh, absolutely. And what a fun trip it will be. Thank you very much, Candy Crowley.</s>CROWLEY: Absolutely.</s>DOBBS: Former President Jimmy Carter, he is expected to endorse Senator Obama tonight. That endorsement could raise even more questions about Senator Obama's national security policies. Carter met with officials from the terrorist group Hamas in the Middle East in April, and in doing so, the former president defied the U.S. State Department, the Bush administration, and the state of Israel. Senator Obama criticized Carter's meeting as well, but Senator Obama has said he is prepared to meet unconditionally with the leaders of countries that support Hamas, including Iran and Syria. Senator Obama today won the endorsement of more delegates. The numbers are changing fast. Here is the latest count. These now, according to CNN's political unit, Obama is now only 10 superdelegates short of clinching the nomination, or, of course, winning those pledged delegates at stake in both Montana and South Dakota today. Senator Clinton is 205 delegates short of the nomination; 31 pledged delegates are at stake, of course, in tonight's primaries in South Dakota and Montana. Nearly 180 superdelegates have yet to declare their intentions. Many of them, we are sure, we'll hear from over the course of this evening and the next 24 to 48 hours. A Catholic priest who mocked Senator Clinton from the pulpit of Senator Obama's former church in Chicago has been suspended by the Catholic Church. The archbishop of Chicago removed Father Michael Pfleger from his post for two weeks. Father Pfleger said Senator Clinton shed tears on the campaign trail because, "a black man was stealing her show," as he put it. Pfleger immediately protested his suspension, saying it's not the right decision. Well, Senator Obama tonight will hold a major rally in St. Paul, Minnesota, the site of the Republican convention to be held in September. Senator Obama is expected to look beyond these primaries now to the general election and the contest with Senator McCain. Jessica Yellin has our report from St. Paul -- Jessica?</s>JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Lou. Well, Barack Obama will have to deliver two messages in his speech tonight. The first is a very carefully crafted message about unifying the party. The second is the shape and form of the general election, his key, central argument to becoming president and his attack on John McCain. Now, the second part of this is much easier for him. We have heard him articulate his attack on John McCain for quite some time now. Essentially, McCain is a rerun of the Bush years, of partisan, divisive politics. He's even -- Barack Obama -- come here to Minnesota, the site of the upcoming Republican convention, to mark his place and say that the Barack Obama campaign will win the blue states, will not let John McCain take any of the blue states, and yet, Barack Obama will go after more red states come the fall. So this is a shot across the bow by appearing here today against the Republicans. But the trickier question tonight is how does he deliver this message of unifying the party? Clearly, he has to make an outreach to Senator Clinton, acknowledge her exceptional hard work. We expect him to do that. There is an issue -- if he accepts the nomination or declares that he is the nominee tonight, there has to be a way and a shape in which he does it that is gracious to Senator Clinton, because there is an overriding concern in his campaign that he not risk even further alienating those among her supporters who are already angry about the process. As we've reported, there has to be a significant amount of work to be done in the next days and weeks. Obama will have to be reaching out to Clinton's top financial backers, some of her staff, even, some of her key supporters to be gracious and suggest that he is thinking of ways to bring this party together. So, that will be the very tricky balancing act that we're going to have to pay close attention to the words he uses and then, of course, a big celebration here. It's an enormous auditorium. Expect one of Obama's mega, mega events tonight -- Wolf -- sorry, Lou.</s>DOBBS: Thank you, Jessica. I appreciate it. Jessica Yellin from St. Paul, Minnesota, where, as Jessica just reported, Senator Obama's expected to be holding a major, major event this evening, as one might expect. Senator McCain tonight is also expected to launch his general election campaign, of course, directed squarely against, now, Senator Barack Obama. Senator McCain will declare tonight he is the only candidate who can bring real change to Washington, D.C. Joe Johns has our report now from the New Orleans suburb of Kenner, Louisiana, where Senator McCain will be making that speech tonight -- Joe.</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, that's right. He is expected to come here and say he is the agent of change in the race for the White House, but one thing that hasn't changed in politics is the need for money, and John McCain needs a lot of it. In fact, he had a big fund-raiser, a private fund-raiser in New Orleans proper today before coming on down here to Kenner to give this speech later tonight. So what is in the speech? Obviously, he is expected to praise Senator Hillary Clinton for running a fine campaign and from what we can tell the rest of it is going to be all about contrast, contrast between him and Barack Obama. One of the things that become pretty clear is that McCain is quite sick of being linked to George W. Bush in every single speech, it seems, that Obama gives. He's expected to use some pretty strong language in that saying that he believes it is essentially dishonest for the Obama campaign to do that. And say that's just a way of avoiding talking about some of the other serious issues. He's also expected to talk a bit about the Iraq war and say that he was opposed to the so-called mismanagement of the war and point out that in his view there have been some improvements in the strategy in Iraq and said that in fact that Barack Obama has opposed any of the changes in Iraq that have brought about those improvements that McCain believes have occurred. As far as the Obama campaign is concerned, they got way out in front of this sending out a lot of e-mails and talking to a lot of reporters saying just the bare fact that John McCain is talking about George Bush at this stage means Barack Obama has already won a round -- Lou.</s>DOBBS: Thank you very much, Joe Johns reporting from Kenner, Louisiana just outside of New Orleans. We'll have much more for you this evening on the campaign that lies ahead. Senator Clinton tonight will be delivering a major speech -- we're going to hear a major speech a lot tonight -- to her supporters here in New York and we're standing by to bring you Senator Clinton's speech live right here on CNN. Stay with us. We'll be right back.