Obama buoyed by endorsement and call for Clinton to drop out

GREENSBURG, Pa. – Accompanied by his new ally, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, Barack Obama embarked today on a six-day bus tour of Pennsylvania, buoyed by strong showings in national polls and a new call for his rival to drop out.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D., Vt.), an Obama supporter, said that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had no chance of winning enough delegates to capture her party's presidential nomination and should consider dropping out of the race in "the interests of a Democratic victory in November."

Leahy, the most prominent party leader to have made such a statement, said that the Casey endorsement was the latest sign of the direction in which the race was going. Obama leads both among delegates and in the popular vote.

Two recent polls, one by Gallup and the other by the Pew Research Center, show Obama opening up an eight- to 10-point margin over Clinton among Democrats nationally – although she retains a double-digit lead in Pennsylvania, which has the next primary on April 22.

"Senator Clinton has every right, but not a very good reason, to remain a candidate for as long as she wants to," said Leahy.

Clinton, campaigning in Indiana, said, "There are millions of reasons to continue this race: people in Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina, and all of the contests yet to come," Clinton told reporters Friday. "This is a very close race and clearly I believe strongly that everyone should have their voices heard and their votes counted."

In an e-mail to supporters earlier in the day, she said, "Have you noticed the pattern? Every time our campaign demonstrates its strength and resilience, people start to suggest we should end our pursuit of the Democratic nomination.

"Those anxious to force us to the sidelines aren't doing it because they think we're going to lose the upcoming primaries. The fact is, they're reading the same polls we are, and they know we are in a position to win."

Meanwhile, Democratic National chairman Howard Dean expressed renewed concern about the potential of the ongoing contest to divide the party with negative consequences for the coming battle against John McCain and the Republicans.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Dean said that some of the exchanges between Obama and Clinton were getting too personal.

"You do not want to demoralize the base of the Democratic Party by having the Democrats attack each other," he said.

Dean also called on all superdelegates – the party and elected officials who will have automatic seats at the national convention in Denver in late August – to declare support for a candidate by July 1 so that the race will be resolved by then at the latest.

More than 300 of those nearly 800 delegates have yet to make a public commitment to a candidate.

Obama started his bus tour in Pittsburgh with a rally, where he spoke to 2,000 cheering supporters; visited a steel mill in Braddock, where he posed for pictures with 50 steelworkers; and finished the day with a town hall meeting here in the county seat of Westmoreland County.

The candidate was joined on the first leg of his bus ride by the man known as "The Bus," former Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis.

Before the caravan got rolling, Bettis gave Obama a blue-and-white version of the Steelers' good luck charm, the Terrible Towel, bearing the words, "Here We Go, America, Here We Go."

Casey, who was along for the whole ride, told reporters that he was not calling for Clinton to drop out – he said he wants Pennsylvania to be heard – and that there was no one incident that led to his decision to back Obama.

"I believe in this guy like I've never believed in a candidate in my life," Casey said, pausing, "except my father."

In addition, he said, he'd been impressed with Obama's demeanor under the pressure of the campaign: "He has appealed, as Abraham Lincoln did many years ago, to the better angels of our nature."

Casey said that his decision had nothing to do with the 1992 Democratic National Convention where Bill Clinton was nominated and where Casey's late father, the former governor Bob Casey, was denied the right to speak on account of his pro-life views.

Obama told the rally in Pittsburgh that he had not pressed his Senate colleague for an endorsement, noting that "I understand that we're behind in Pennsylvania."

For that reason, Obama said, "it meant as much to me as any endorsement I've received in this campaign because I knew it was coming from the heart. And I knew it wasn't based on any political calculation."

Gerald McEntee, president of AFSCME, the national government employees' union, said he was stunned by Casey's move.

"We feel that this was a treacherous act," McEntee said, noting that AFSCME had backed both the Caseys "all down the line." The union leader added: "We never got a heads-up. . . . He'll have to work hard for an AFSCME endorsement in the future."

Mark Nevins, Clinton's Pennsylvania press secretary, pointed to the support that Clinton has from numerous prominent Pennsylvania Democrats, including Gov. Rendell and Mayor Nutter.

"At the end of the day," Nevins said, "there is a clear choice in this election between action and words, experience and rhetoric, and we trust the people of Pennsylvania to make the right decision."

During his Pittsburgh speech, Obama argued that Clinton's main case against him is that he hasn't spent enough time in Washington. The experience argument, he said, has its limitations.

"If the contest between McCain and the Democratic nominee is who's been there longer, John McCain wins," Obama said, before expanding his critique to include Clinton. ". . . If that's the criteria for answering the three o'clock phone call, and you went along with George Bush's policies when it came to Iraq, and not talking to leaders that we don't like, then John McCain wins that fight."

McCain, he said, "is representing the politics of the past. And in order to battle the politics of the past, you need a candidate who is talking about the future of our politics," Obama said.

After the event in Greensburg, the bus caravan drove on to Johnstown where Obama has a town hall meeting scheduled for Saturday.

To follow Obama's bus tour go to www.philly.com/philly/news/politics