Clinton loans herself $5 million
NEW YORK (CNN) — Democrat Hillary Clinton loaned her presidential campaign $5 million in January, the New York senator said Wednesday.
"I loaned the campaign $5 million dollars from my money," she said at a press conference at her Arlington, Virginia headquarters. "I loaned it because I believe in this campaign and I think the results last night proved the wisdom of my investment."
Earlier Wednesday, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson confirmed reports Clinton had lent her campaign money in January, and said "The loan illustrates Sen. Clinton's commitment to this effort and to ensuring that our campaign has the resources it needs to compete and win across this nation."
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Romney soldiers on
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) – The day after a disappointing Super Tuesday showing, a spokesman for Mitt Romney told reporters gathered outside campaign headquarters that the former Massachusetts governor would push on through to the nominating convention.
“John McCain had a good night, there’s no question about that. But that doesn’t mean Mitt Romney had a bad night," said Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney's traveling press secretary. “We won seven states, we’re number two in the delegate count and we’re moving forward to the next contest and we’re looking forward to it.”
Romney gathered his staff in a large room at the headquarters in the early afternoon to thank them for their hard work and to give them a pep talk. “Morale is very upbeat,” said Fehrnstrom, “if you guys were out here and heard the cheering and applause, that was for the governor and his performance last night. So everybody’s feeling good about the future.”
What the future holds is an uphill climb. Republicans have to win 1,191 delegates to clinch the nomination. To date Romney has won an estimated 270 delegates to John McCain’s estimated 680 - with roughly 1200 still up for grabs. That means he would have to win a full three-quarters of the remaining delegates against a candidate who is gathering steam.
Fehrnstrom said Romney's path to the nomination runs through Ohio and Texas, two of the biggest post-Super Tuesday states. “Texas has a very conservative Republican electorate, we expect to do well there,” he said, “and Ohio has some of the same economic problems as Michigan which we already won.”
Romney didn’t talk to the press Wednesday, instead making a quick exit with wife Ann to their car later in the afternoon.
On Thursday, Romney will give a speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee convention in Washington, D.C. and speak a dinner in Baltimore ahead of the D.C. and Maryland primaries on February 12. This weekend, he will travel to Kansas and Washington state to continue campaigning.
- CNN Political Producer Alexander Marquardt
Clinton, Kennedy and Obama meet on the Senate floor
(CNN) - CNN's Ted Barrett reports that on the Senate floor just minutes ago, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, who has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, approached Sen. Hillary Clinton during the vote on the economic stimulus package. He shook her hand and said something that caused her to laugh loudly - it seemed to be about her success in Massachusetts last night. Obama, standing two feet away talking to Sen. Tim Johnson, turned.
After a few more comments that couldn't be overheard from the press gallery directly above them, Clinton laughed again and said to Obama. "I had a big sigh of relief when he [Kennedy] endorsed you." Everyone laughed, a little awkwardly. Sen. John Kerry, who has also endorsed Obama, took the Illinois senator by the elbow and walked away with him.
Cafferty: Clinton & Obama on same ticket?
Here is perhaps the most fascinating statistic coming out of Super Tuesday: out of 14 and a half million votes cast in the Democratic race, only 53 thousand separated Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, that's according to Time magazine.
And in case you're interested: in the 19 states where both Democrats and Republicans had elections yesterday, there were 73% more Democratic voters than Republican voters – 14 plus million for Clinton and Obama to 8 plus million for John McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
First off, this shows how much more interest there is on the part of Democratic electorate than the Republicans. And it shows how incredibly close the race between Clinton and Obama continues to be.
These numbers mean that it's likely this thing will become a long, protracted battle, continuing into states like Ohio and Texas, maybe even Pennsylvania. It's even possible the Democrats won't formally select a nominee until their convention in August.
And then what? With millions of enthusiastic supporters backing Barack Obama and millions more backing Hillary Clinton, what happens if only one of them winds up on the ballot for November?
To read more and contribute to the Cafferty File discussion click here
On the Trail: King on Camelot
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON (CNN) – Tens of thousands of feet over the Atlantic, one of John McCain's biggest congressional supporters said the Republican presidential hopeful's biggest challenge in a fall matchup with Democrat Barack Obama would be to pull the Illinois senator's public image “out of the stratosphere, out of the mythology that’s already been created for him.”
The morning after strong Super Tuesday showings for both candidates, New York Rep. Peter King and I shared the Delta Shuttle flight from New York to Washington, D.C. For the quickie interview, King reclined his seat back the full two inches, and I pitched him questions from the row behind.
King, a longtime McCain supporter who backed the senator during his last presidential run in 2000, started out the current campaign cycle supporting fellow New Yorker Rudy Giuliani. He made the move to the McCain team after the former New York City mayor abandoned his White House bid, and spent much of the past week campaigning with the senator in New York.
(McCain - whose campaign famously battled former New York Gov. George Pataki to appear on the primary ballot in 2000 - this week won both the former governor's endorsement and the state's winner-take-all Republican contest.)
Obama’s rise, said King, was being portrayed as “almost a second coming of Camelot” - and in a McCain-Obama faceoff, the Arizona Republican could find himself “up against almost a myth, a legend.
"I’m not trying to be sarcastic here," he said. "Obama’s campaigning on a platform of hope, change, and John will need to bring it back to reality. What is Obama going to do about Islamic terrorism, about Iraq and the consequences of [Obama’s] immediate withdrawal plan?”
Blitzer: Huckabee deserves credit
(CNN) - As I suspected, Super Tuesday turned out to be a long night. We went on the air in The Situation Room at 4 p.m. ET, and didn't get off until 2 a.m. ET.
It was a good night for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. On the Republican side, it was a good night for John McCain and Mike Huckabee. Mitt Romney didn't have such a good night. Super Tuesday did not wrap up the presidential nominations. Now, we get ready for the next contests, beginning this weekend.
I've been thinking about the finalists in this presidential race, and those who didn't reach the finals. A year ago, all of us believed that Hillary Clinton and John McCain would be major presidential contenders. Mitt Romney was always taken very seriously as a candidate. Some thought Barack Obama had a huge future ahead of him, but might not yet be ready for a presidential run. And few gave Mike Huckabee a real shot. Outside of Arkansas, most Americans never heard of him.
But the former Arkansas governor deserves a lot of credit. He has outlasted several much more visible and well-known Republicans, including Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. Other former governors, including Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin (a former Secretary of Health and Human Services) and Jim Gilmore of Virginia, were initially taken more seriously than Huckabee. But he persisted and proved his critics wrong.
He has convinced a lot of people over the year that he is a gifted politician. He certainly didn't have the money or staff of the other major candidates. But he made up for that with a lot of grit and hard work. He was determined.
Years ago, I interviewed him after he lost more than 100 pounds. He had just written a book on his struggle with the early stages of diabetes because of his obesity. He went on a strict diet and began exercising. He documented it all in his book which I read.
You can certainly agree or disagree with his positions on the different domestic, foreign policy and social issues of the day. But you still have to give this politician credit in getting to this final stage of the game.
- CNN Anchor Wolf Blitzer
America Votes 2008: What's next for the candidates?
(CNN) The Super Tuesday presidential nominating contests seem to have solidified John McCain's frontrunner status - but failed to give either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama grounds for an exclusive claim to that title on the Democrattic side.
In the latest installment of America Votes 2008, watch the candidates and their campaigns reflect on how they fared in Tuesday's primaries and caucuses, and reveal their plans as the campaign continues.
Related: Listen to post-Super Tuesday analysis from CNN Political Editor Mark Preston and CNN's John Lisk.
Obama, Clinton separated by 0.4 percent on Super Tuesday
NEW YORK (CNN) - Just how sharply are Democrats divided between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton?
Of all the votes cast on Super Tuesday for the two candidates nationwide, they are only separated by 0.4 of a percentage point.
By midday Wednesday, 14,645,638 votes were reported cast for either Obama or Clinton on Tuesday. Clinton had won 7,350,238 of those votes (50.2 percent) while Obama captured 7,295,400 votes (49.8 percent).
Most precincts had reported 100 percent of their votes by Wednesday, though some districts had yet to complete their count. Many of those votes are in in New Mexico, where CNN has yet to declare a winner, and in California, where a sizeable number of absentee votes have yet to be tallied.
- CNN's Adam Levy
Related: Watch CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser analyze what's next for the candidates
DNC chair: We may have to broker Clinton-Obama deal
(CNN) - As predictions of a convention floor fight from the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to mount, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said the party would likely intervene to prevent that scenario.
Dean said Democrats would look to “get the candidates together to make some kind of an arrangement” before the party meets in Denver this August to officially select its nominee.
In an interview on NY1 on Tuesday, before the outcome of the day’s votes was known, Dean said he thought the Democratic Party would have a nominee by mid-March or April.
"The idea that we can afford to have a big fight at the convention and then win the race in the next eight weeks, I think, is not a good scenario,” he said.
If there is no nominee selected by his predicted mid-spring date, or by Puerto Rico's June vote – the last presidential primary on the Democratic calendar – Dean said the party would likely bring both sides together to work out a deal.
“Because I don't think we can afford to have a brokered convention,” he said. “That would not be good news for either party."
–CNN Associate Political Editor Rebecca Sinderbrand
McCain vows to unite Republicans, ready to 'wrap this up'
(CNN) - Sen. John McCain expressed pleasure and gratitude over his Super Tuesday showing and declared, "We will unite the party behind our conservative principles and move forward and win the general election in November."
The morning after proclaiming that he is now the front-runner among Republicans seeking the nation's highest office, the senator from Arizona told reporters in Phoenix, "I'm very pleased about the victory last night, obviously."
Standing in front of his "Straight Talk Express" bus, flanked by the man he has called his "favorite Democrat," Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, McCain said he was "pleased at the depth and breadth of our victory last night."
Supporters like Lieberman and Graham, he said, "gave us a broad base of support from all parts of this party."
McCain said he has canceled a planned trip abroad this weekend in order to "wrap this up as quickly as possible."
Asked about concern among "very conservative" Republicans that McCain is not conservative enough for their tastes, McCain said he is not worried.
"With conservative voters, which are the majority of Republicans, we did extremely well," he said. And comparing his home state with that of is conservative rival, he said, "We won by a much larger margin in Arizona than Governor (Mitt) Romney did in Massachusetts."
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