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Hillary Clinton Moving on to West Virginia; Hillary Clinton Wins Indiana; North Carolina Bumps up Barack Obama's Delegate Lead; United States Gearing up to Help Cyclone Victims in Myanmar

Aired May 07, 2008 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ALINA CHO, CNN ANCHOR: Sure, when pigs fly.
Always great to hear from (INAUDIBLE) now.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Serious discussion this morning.

CHO: That's right.

ROBERTS: Thanks all so much for writing in this morning.

CHO: And thanks so much for joining us on this AMERICAN MORNING.

ROBERTS: Can't believe it's over already. Four hours went so fast.

CHO: Four hours.

ROBERTS: But it continues because CNN NEWSROOM with Tony Harris and Fredricka Whitfield begins right now.

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, everyone. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Tony Harris.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

The events come into the NEWSROOM live Wednesday, May 7th. Here's what's on the rundown.

Hillary Clinton moving on to West Virginia today. She wins Indiana, but North Carolina bumps up Barack Obama's delegate lead.

HARRIS: Who voted for Clinton? Who voted for Obama and why? Exit polls paint a profile of his and her voters.

WHITFIELD: The United States gearing up to help cyclone victims in Myanmar. What or who is holding things up? Find out in the NEWSROOM.

HARRIS: Democrats run for the White House. Barack Obama inches closer to the nomination. Hillary Clinton's campaign stays alive. Where do things stand this morning after?

CNN's Jessica Yellin has Clinton's narrow win in Indiana. Susan Roesgen looks at questions over the counting. And less than 30 minutes away, we will go live to the next battleground state. First, let's set the stage with Jessica in Indianapolis.

Jessica, good morning.

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Tony. You know, last night, Barack Obama seemed to be a man who knows he will be the next Democratic presidential nominee.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

YELLIN (voice over): With his decisive victory in North Carolina, Barack Obama all but declared himself the Democratic nominee.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, there are those who were saying that North Carolina would be a game-changer in this election. But today, what North Carolina decided is that the only game that needs changing is the one in Washington, D.C.

YELLIN: Promising to unite the party and champion American values, he turned his sights on John McCain.

OBAMA: And while I honor John McCain's service to his country, his ideas for America are out of touch with these core values.

YELLIN: And declared himself ready to take on any Republican attack.

OBAMA: Yes, we know what's coming. I'm not naive. We've already seen it. The same names and labels they always pin on everyone who doesn't agree with all their ideas.

YELLIN: Translation? He's electable.

Just like dwindling opportunities, Senator Clinton conceded nothing.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And Indiana would be the tiebreaker. Well, tonight, we've come from behind, we've broken the tie, and thanks to you, it's full speed on to the White House.

YELLIN: With her supporters behind her.

UNIDENTIFIED SUPPORTERS: Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!

YELLIN: She made another appeal for cash to fuel this race.

CLINTON: So I hope you will go to HillaryClinton.com and support our campaign.

YELLIN: And to count her winning votes in Florida and Michigan.

CLINTON: It would be a little strange to have a nominee chosen by 48 states. YELLIN: But Chelsea and Bill's faces seemed to betray something different, perhaps a sense that victory is remote.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YELLIN: And Tony, Senator Clinton seems positioned to win the next primaries, which are in West Virginia and then Kentucky, but she would need a landslide victory in every single primary contest still to come, six in all, for her to even catch up with Barack Obama's delegate lead.

The chances of that do seem remote, and yet she insists today, the campaign insists, they are powering forward -- Tony?

HARRIS: Yes. That she's still in it to win it.

Jessica Yellin for us in Indianapolis.

Jessica, great to see you. Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Well, Clinton's victory in Indiana didn't become clear until well after midnight. The reason? A painfully slow count in a county near Chicago.

CNN's Susan Roesgen joins us from that county, Lake County, and the town of Crown Point.

So Susan, what did take so long?

SUSAN ROESGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Boy, you know, just about everything that could go wrong, Fredricka, went wrong here. I'm at the actual election center here in Lake County, Indiana. They had some new voting machines that hadn't really been tested before in a primary like this. They had an overwhelming number of voters at the polls. And they had a record number of absentee ballots.

Get this. They say it takes just 30 seconds, Fredricka, to tally up all the votes in a single precinct, but it can take as long as five minutes or longer than that for each absentee ballot.

WHITFIELD: Wow.

ROESGEN: They say reading those absentee ballots is not as simple as just reading the actual vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE FAJMAN, ELECTION SUPERVISOR, LAKE CO., INDIANA: They verify signatures from the application to the ballot. Then they separate those, then they open up the ballot envelopes, they look for two sets of initials on there to make sure it's been validated. Then they separate those out. They (INAUDIBLE) then come over to a scanning team.

We match them up to the report, make sure that our numbers match. If you have 25 ballots, you have 25 returns and so forth. (END VIDEO CLIP)

ROESGEN: And so forth and so forth and so forth. All that, Fredricka, before they even actually got down to putting those absentee ballots through an optical scanner to see which way the absentee voters voted. When they found out that the whole nation's focus last night was on this one particular county, especially on CNN as you saw late last night...

WHITFIELD: Yes.

ROESGEN: ...people were wondering why hasn't this county come back with the results. When the people inside this building found out about that, they immediately stopped counting the absentee ballots, went back to just tallying up really quickly the presents, and so they were able to say that about 97 percent of the votes were counted and they gave a figure that everybody could accept.

But I've got to tell you that those workers inside this building, they started at 5:00 a.m. Tuesday morning.

WHITFIELD: Oh, my gosh.

ROESGEN: When we got here at 5:00 a.m. today, they were just leaving.

WHITFIELD: Still there. Wow.

ROESGEN: A full 24 hours -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Oh, my gosh. Clearly they put in a lot of work. But that didn't mean that the Indiana secretary of state didn't have some criticism to lodge against them or at least the entire system. So, how are those workers, who I know are weary this morning, how are they responding to that kind of criticism?

ROESGEN: Well, you know, they say it's unfair. The secretary of state came out with a statement, just part of it. We have it on a graphic. It says that, "Every other urban area of our state uses this one process in order to get results quickly and to stop suspicions from rooting and festering the process," that most of the other counties go through here, Fredricka, is to have each individual precinct add up each of their individual absentee ballots.

In this particular county, they do it all here at this election center because they believe it will be more accurate that way, that there won't be any funny business at each of the individual precincts. But now they're getting criticism from the secretary of state. And the people who left here after 24 hours...

WHITFIELD: Oh man.

ROESGEN: ...this morning said they just, you know -- they just thought it was so unfair and they worked really hard and they say there was nothing funny about what happened here last night except that it just took forever to shove all those absentee ballots through. WHITFIELD: Wow. All right. Very laborious work.

HARRIS: Yes.

WHITFIELD: Susan Roesgen, thanks so much from Crown Point.

HARRIS: Well, here's a look at where things stand in the delegate race. I guess I should say the all-important delegate race. Barack Obama now has 1,836 delegates. Hillary Clinton, 1,681. That's based on CNN estimates. Obama is within 189 delegates of the 2,205 needed to win the nomination.

Ahead the West Virginia primary. It is coming up Tuesday, May 13th. Twenty-eight Democratic delegates are up for grabs.

WHITFIELD: Surrounded by death, cyclone survivors in Myanmar are struggling. Food and shelter at a premium.

CNN's Dan Rivers is the only western journalist in the area. He's reporting on the devastation of an area called Bogalay. A warning, some of you may find some of these pictures rather disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It took almost everything. Cyclone Nargis has left Bogalay a shell of a town. People scavenging in what looks like a war zone. The blank, numb stares of survivors tell of the horror here. And the horror is still stalking these streets. Some scenes are beyond words.

Bodies are being unceremoniously dumped in the river. Monasteries are being used as temporary shelter for hundreds of people. Here, 600 are sleeping where they can.

(On camera): Everyone in this room has lost their home and many have lost their loved ones. The monks say there is enough food to feed these people for two more days. After that, they don't know what they're going to do.

(Voice over): The food, carefully watched by young novices. This woman says there's nothing left. She's totally dependent on the monastery. This man says, "I'll have to survive somehow. I'll eat whatever the people donate."

In another monastery, we find what they call the operating theater. This place seems utterly without medical supplies as this man's wounds show.

(On camera): Well, this is one of the relief centers in Bogalay, if you can call it a relief center, but there's not much in the way of aid being given out. A little bit of rice. But many of these people have lost everything they own, and including many of their loved ones.

There are horrific scenes here with the bodies being dumped in the river. We can't really film very overtly here. The authorities are not pleased we're here. And at the moment, I think soldiers are coming so we're going to have to leave.

(Voice over): Myanmar's top military brass flew in to assess the damage. From the air, the epic scale of this disaster was clear -- mile upon mile of devastated countryside. But it's only up close on the ground that you see the human face of this tragedy, making shelter where they can, under the black skies that brought such mayhem and suffering.

Dan Rivers, CNN, Bogalay, southern Myanmar.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Well, quite extraordinary. Well, the U.S. is taking some action to help cyclone victims in Myanmar. We're live at the Pentagon with word of military movement overnight -- Tony.

HARRIS: Well, even the police commissioner says it doesn't look good. A police beating caught on tape in Philadelphia. Take a look at this video from WTXF. Police responding to a shooting pulled three men out of a car, as you can see here. About six officers pulled two of the suspects down. And watch, those suspects are kicked and hit multiple times. The third suspect was also kicked.

The beating happened on Monday, two days after a veteran officer was fatally shot in an unrelated incident. The attorney for the three men says police used unnecessary force, but police say they were provoked. The three suspects have been charged with aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy, and other crimes.

WHITFIELD: Kicked out of their dorms by a fire. Happened at Our Lady of the Lake -- University, rather, in Texas. Take a look at the pictures here. The damage is so extensive, more than 100 students were forced out of their dorms. The school helped find them other places to live on campus for now.

Well, this morning, classes, of course, have been canceled. Arson investigators are now on the scene.

HARRIS: All right. Time now for a check of weather. First check of weather in the CNN NEWSROOM. There he is, Rob Marciano.

Rob, good morning to you.

(WEATHER UPDATE)

WHITFIELD: I've never seen like a bad shot of Boston when we use it for weather. I mean, it's just a beautiful, beautiful city...

HARRIS: They always seem to be great, yes.

WHITFIELD: ...no matter what angle.

MARCIANO: Well, you know, we try to show them some love.

WHITFIELD: I know.

HARRIS: Thank you. Thank you, Rob.

WHITFIELD: You aim to please. All right. Thanks so much.

HARRIS: A strong win in North Carolina. Barack Obama adding to his delegate lead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: We stand less than 200 delegates away from securing the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: So what now? Find out in the NEWSROOM.

ANNOUNCER: CNN NEWSROOM brought to you by...

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: And good morning again, everyone. Welcome back to the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Tony Harris.

A frightening message from her son in Afghanistan puts one mom in a real panic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His friend died a year ago in Iraq and I'm thinking, oh, my god, this might be the last time I hear my son's voice on the phone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: The accidental phone call in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Breaking news, revealing developments, see for yourself in the CNN NEWSROOM.

WHITFIELD: The U.S. now moving military equipment closer to Myanmar to help if and when an invitation is actually extended.

CNN's Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon this morning.

Barbara, we talked about this possibility yesterday. So, what's changed?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Fred, the military is now putting things into place but still waiting for that final word, any indication that the junta in Myanmar would accept U.S. military assistance or assistance from around the world.

But the U.S. is putting the pieces in place. And next door, Thailand clearly will be the staging area for any U.S. military assistance. What is happening today is the amphibious ship Essex is moving north off the east coast of Thailand, north. It will put its helicopters into northern Thailand as close as they possibly can get to Myanmar to be ready, on standby to go, and bring relief supplies in if that government were to agree.

Then those empty ships might move around to the other side of Thailand and be closer, as well, for further assistance. In addition, senior U.S. military officials tell us there are now six C130 aircraft in Thailand also on standby to try and bring in some assistance from Thailand into Myanmar.

But still, the government there in spite of the widespread devastation that is happening in that country and the offers of help from around the world, still no word from the government in Myanmar that they will accept U.S. military aid -- Fred?

WHITFIELD: Wow, that seems cruel, doesn't it? Well, Barbara, so what, if anything, or to what extent can this administration do anything to try to get that permission to gain some industry?

STARR: Right. You know, that is the key question. Now there's an awful lot of frustration in Washington. The U.S. military is close by. They do want to help. They've done this many, many times around the world in some very dodgy areas. We are told there will be an interagency meeting here in Washington later today where top officials will get together and try and plot out the next steps. What they can do to approach the government there and try and convince them to take help from around the world -- Fred?

WHITFIELD: All right. Barbara, thank you so much from the Pentagon. Of course, we know that you probably want to help.

And CNN.com has a special page on the devastation in Myanmar complete with links to aid agencies that are organizing help for the region. It's a chance for you to "Impact Your World." Let us be your guide.

HARRIS: Turning up to heat on OPEC help cool down rising gas prices? Why the cartel doesn't deserve all the blame.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Putting the pressure on OPEC. Could it ease your pain at the pump? The candidates debate that point.

Here's CNN's Mary Snow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Another day, another record high as oil tops $120 a barrel. It's fueling debate between candidates over what to do to lower costs. Hillary Clinton is targeting OPEC, the organization that controls a significant part of the world's oil production and influences its prices.

CLINTON: We're going to go right at OPEC. They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly, they get together every couple of months in some conference room in some plush place in the world.

SNOW: Barack Obama charges his rival of saying things just to get elected.

OBAMA: And I thought to myself, you say you've been in the White House for eight years, you've had two terms as a United States senator, and haven't said a word about OPEC.

SNOW: Will pressure on OPEC help reduce the cost of oil?

Two energy analysts have differing opinions.

PETER BEUTEL, OIL ANALYST, CAMERON HANOVER: We've basically been treating them with kid gloves for last several years here, and all we do is occasionally beg them for oil and they pretty much ignore us and then nothing happens.

FRANK VERRASTRO, CTR. FOR STRATEGIC & INTL. STUDIES: We're playing the blame game. It's either the oil companies or OPEC. And I actually think the current situation -- we need no further look than, you know, beyond the mirror to see what the real problem is.

SNOW: Translation? American consumers share the blame. Analysts say consumer demand keeps growing and there's a lock of conservation. Some analysts say market manipulation is a big factor in record oil prices.

FADEL GHEIT, OIL ANALYST, OPPENHEIMER & CO.: It is not the oil industries. It's really not OPEC. It is all the financial players that found that oil is in a new asset class. It's the only game in town. This is the only thing that they can make huge, huge profit on.

SNOW: Analyst Fadel Gheit says Hillary Clinton is accurate when she says that market manipulation is unnecessarily adding to the price of oil, but he says that's nothing new.

(On camera): The Senate has been looking into market manipulation. It's unclear, though, how much it factors into the price of oil. His estimates range from 20 to 60 percent. All the analysts we spoke with say the bottom line, though, is this government must do more to increase energy efficiency in order for anything meaningful to feel happen.

Mary Snow, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And this just in. After a victory and also a seemingly concession-like speech last night from Indiana, Hillary Clinton also asked people to start sending in that money.

HARRIS: Yes.

WHITFIELD: She's made it very clear that she could use some contributions from a number of folks. Well, now we're hearing from the Associated Press that she is indeed borrowing $6.4 million from herself to carry on with her campaign. Last night, she said she is ready to go on to West Virginia and South Dakota after a narrow win in Indiana and this $6.4 million is just after, what, three months or so from borrowing money, $5 million, from her own purse to carry on with her campaign.

So this information just in about Hillary Clinton's position with the money for her campaign to keep the fight going. We'll, of course, continue to follow the developments.

Meantime, campaign '08 overall, where to now? Clinton and Obama go mining for delegates in coal country, West Virginia. Here they come, in the NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: The "Opening Bell" brought to you by...

This is CNN, the most trusted name in news. Now back to the CNN NEWSROOM.

HARRIS: And welcome back, everyone, to the CNN NEWSROOM. good morning to you. I'm Tony Harris.

WHITFIELD: And I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

Hillary Clinton already looking ahead to the next primary. She added West Virginia to her schedule today to go to Charleston.

And CNN's Jim Acosta.

So, Jim, this was a last-minute decision, was it not?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was, Fredricka. And she is campaigning on the economy in Shepherdstown, West Virginia today. She's headed to this state for one and one reason only. That's because there's delegate gold, 28 delegates to be specific, in these hills.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice over): Coal is king in West Virginia, but another fuel, gasoline, is running a close second these days, and that hurts in a state where workers have one of the longest commute times in the country.

GOV. JOE MANCHIN (D), WEST VIRGINIA: I've never felt more helpless as being governor of my great state of West Virginia that I just want to jump in and do something. It's wrong.

ACOSTA: Which is why West Virginia governor Joe Manchin is open to Hillary Clinton's plan for a gas tax holiday. But that doesn't mean this superdelegate is ready to make an endorsement. He did take note, however, when Barack Obama infamously referred to bitter, small- town Pennsylvania voters who cling to their guns.

GOV. JOE MANCHIN (D), WEST VIRGINIA: I'm going to given every candidate the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes things slip out.

ACOSTA (on camera): Well, you must have heard something, governor...

MANCHIN: Sure. Well, here, first of all, I can assure you we're a state that really, really clings to the Second Amendment.

ACOSTA (voice-over): West Virginia plays to nearly all of Clinton's demographic strength. It's older, whiter, and more rural than the rest of America. But that doesn't mean voters here are resistant to change.

DAVID LOVEJOY, RETIRED COAL MINER: I think it's time, either a woman or a black person or an African-American. I think it's time.

ACOSTA: This is, after all, the state that made Democratic primary history a half-century ago.

(on camera): Can people in West Virginia vote for a guy named Barack Obama?

ROBERT RUPP, WEST VIRGINIA WESLEYAN UNIV.: Forty-eight years ago, they asked if they could vote for a Boston Irish millionaire who was a Catholic, and they did in a landslide vote.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: And that professor has dubbed the contest coming up in this state as the Appalachian primary, so it's no surprise that both Clinton and Obama are making appeals to this state's coal industry.

And for now, the Coal Miners Union, which is very powerful in this state, they have not yet announced an endorsement. They had endorsed John Edwards, but of course he is no longer in the race -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Jim. Thank you so much -- Tony.

HARRIS: Barack Obama inching closer to the nomination. Hillary Clinton fighting hard to stop him. The delegate map adding it up.

Our chief national correspondent John King earlier on AMERICAN MORNING.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALINA CHO, CNN ANCHOR: It's not too early to look ahead. So what's next?

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATL. CORRESPONDENT: What is next is map that shows you how difficult and daunting the delegate map is for Senator Hillary Clinton. Here is where we start the day right here. We've allocated Indiana. We've allocated North Carolina. A few delegates still to slice out there based on the congressional districts. But let us, for the sake of argument, first starting at the finish line, Clinton is back here, Obama is out here, here's the finish line out here.

Let's for the sake of argument just say hypothetically Hillary Clinton wins big the rest of the way out. There's no reason to believe she would, but I'm going to tap that twice, but let's just show how tough the math is. Even if she does that well in West Virginia, in Kentucky, down here in Puerto Rico, then move out here into the Plains and the West where Barack Obama has been winning. But let's for this hypothetical give all of those states 65/35 to Senator Clinton. Look what happens. Look what happens. She closes the gap somewhat, we're over the red, but Barack Obama would still win, and even if Senator Clinton won 65/35 in all the remaining states.

So what does that mean? this is where we start the day here. I'll get rid of those lines so people don't get confused. This is where we start the day. If she won 65/35 the rest of the way out, she would almost catch up but she would still be about 100 pledge delegates behind. And then you have these superdelegates. They will decide the nominating contest. Has Senator Clinton changed that psychology to make them all come her way? She would need well in excess of 60 percent of them. If they just roughly split those delegates -- let's do that and let's do that, give a few more up here, bring these remaining ones down here, guess what, about 50 percent of these delegates, that's all Barack Obama needs to get over the finish line, would be about 50 percent of the superdelegates, and that is assuming Senator Clinton romped her way to the finish. If they split delegates 50/50 from here on out, the pledge delegates and superdelegates, Barack Obama is your nominee.

CHO: You know, a lot talk about the math isn't there, the math isn't there for Hillary Clinton, when you see it like this, this is how it plays out, you know, it's really graphically noticeable how close Obama is to the finish line when you put it out like that, and especially giving Hillary Clinton as many delegates as you did.

KING: All Barack Obama has to do from here on out is split 50/50. He has done better than that in contests to date, and he a big win in North Carolina last night that blocked Senator Clinton from getting the psychological game-changing argument she very much needed, so there's no reason to believe based on everything we know today that Barack Obama can't get 50 percent. There's still time. There's more elections to come. But the bar now for Senator Clinton, the mathematical bar and the psychological bar, is higher.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Well, right now we're able to tell you CNN has confirmed now that Senator Hillary Clinton has lent herself $6.4 million to help keep her campaign afloat, this after doing the same with $5 million just back in February. Clinton's campaign reported raising some $10 million after her April Pennsylvania win, so, of course, after her narrow victory in Indiana last night, that campaign is hoping that, once again, it'll get some kind of shot in the arm. But the $6.4 million that she lent herself has happened within this past month. More as we get it.

HARRIS; Prime time fireworks: The tight Democratic race may turn out to be the best drama on this summer. CNN special correspondent Frank Sesno takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you, North Carolina.

FRANK SESNO, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What a mess it would be.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you, Indiana.

SESNO: Not a brokered convention, but a contested convention. Think Carter/Kennedy in 1980, when young Teddy took on incumbent Jimmy. The Kennedy forces challenged the rules, picked dozens of fights trying to sway the delegates. Could this year's convention be as divisive and unpredictable?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The highest authority in the Democratic Party is the national convention meeting en masse. And when that convention gets together under one roof, that convention can do what it wants.

SESNO: From the Credentials Committee that approves delegations to the Rules and Platform committees, they could all be battlegrounds.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Delegates, alternates, honored guests.

SESNO: On day one in Denver, the very first fight could be whether to ratify or reject the contested Michigan and Florida delegations. The outcome could tip the balance. But fights could go on. In the Platform Committee, for example, to flex muscle and force debate onto the convention floor. Those primetime TV speeches could get pushed aside by angry debates over procedure and politics.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To try to go out and demonstrate you control the floor of the convention, that those delegates on that convention floor will support you.

SESNO: It will be hardball for any wavering superdelegates for sure, but even the pledge delegates are by party rule bound only by good conscience, so they could flip, or abstain if they decided, say, that Obama couldn't win or that Clinton was a danger to party unity. Emotional issues of race, gender, party disunity, a made-for-TV spectacular. If all else fails, someone else could even offer to run. Now, who might that be?

(on camera): Whatever happens in Denver, experienced convention hands say the jockeying and the bad blood could begin well before convention time. Throughout the summer, candidate forces will be lobbying and cajoling, trying to gain control of those key committees.

Frank Sesno, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, just moments ago we confirmed for you that Senator Hillary Clinton has borrowed some $6.4 million from her own account to help keep her campaign afloat. This taking place within the past month.

Our Candy Crowley has been following Senator Clinton's campaign, as well as Senator Obama's and McCain's, as she does everything. Candy Crowley joining us now from Raleigh, North Carolina on the phone, where Senator Clinton was defeated in North Carolina. But tell me, you know, Candy, why this is important to underscore that she has had to resort to borrowing money from herself to keep things going.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POL. CORRESPONDENT: Well, money follows success, so once you begin to look as though you may not be able to pull this out, people start looking and thinking, is this a well- invested contribution? so, that becomes difficult. We have known before, post-Pennsylvania, her success there, she came out and said, hey, go to hillaryclinton.com and give me some money. We're told they raised about $10 million in a 24-hour period, because people love that sort of fighter image.

What I am told by sources is that on April 11 she loaned herself about $5 million. She followed that up with another million on May 1st. And then about half a million on May 5th. So, overall, over $6 million Hillary Clinton has sunk into her own campaign.

The problem is without the money it's hard to even try to stay competitive with these advertisements, because obviously, Barack Obama has the money to be up on the air and outspend her sometimes 3-1.

So, the fact of the matter is we're coming up on some states that have relatively cheap advertising. When you look at Kentucky or if you look at West Virginia, you can buy ads there comparatively cheaply.

WHITFIELD: I'm sorry to cut you off there, Candy. I didn't mean to in the middle of your thought. So I'm wondering, is that where the majority of the money goes, advertisements? You were mentioning how, you know, they are flooding these markets just ahead of these primaries. Is that what is absorbing so much of these millions of dollars that both of them have raised early on in the campaign?

CROWLEY: Well, it raises a lot of it. I mean, that's where they spend a lot of it, sorry. But they also have huge staffs. They also have very expensive consultants. We have seen Hillary Clinton in the past kind of suspend those payments to some of the consultants, and indeed some of the vendors. You know, it costs money, for instance, to have an election-night event, where you need a sound system, where you need platforms. They call in independent contractors to do this. It's very expensive. Every event has some sort of overhead.

Now, we have heard reports most recently that some of those visitors are not being paid by the Clinton campaign. So, maybe where some of this money went was to pay off some of those bills. We don't know because we haven't seen the actual figures in a report.

WHITFIELD: Interesting. So, I'm wondering, are any of your, you know, sources within the Clinton campaign perhaps revealing to you, as we heard Senator Clinton say last night, you know, it's on to West Virginia, it's on to South Dakota and so and so. Are they revealing to you that perhaps to try to stretch out these dollars, that perhaps we won't spend the money on advertisements? They know they're going to have the news coverage. Instead they know they have to continue to pay these staff members. They have to have these evening events, as you mentioned, that cost a lot of money.

CROWLEY: Well, generally, when you get to this point in the race, you will see senior staffers, if they're getting a lot of money, or consultants who generally are close to the candidates say, OK, we'll suspend payment while you move on, because in the end, you can raise money to pay off your debt. So, it's a good debt in a certain sense. It is hard to give up the advertising, because it is key to how people see you. It's how you frame your image.

On the other hand, it's also why Hillary Clinton also wants to debate, because that is free nationwide attention, as well as statewide attention.

WHITFIELD: Ooh, and so you mentioned image. I just got to try and underscore that. So what is the message now that this borrowing money from yourself, what does that do to her image? Does it show that, you know, she is in it to win it, she's a fighter, she's a contender, or does it say, uh-oh, I'm in trouble?

CROWLEY: Yes.

WHITFIELD: Yes to all of that. OK.

CROWLEY: It really depends on what side you're going to look at this. Certainly, the Clinton campaign -- and it has before. She's lent her campaign money before when it looked a little down. And she says, look, this is my investment in this enterprise. And this shows how committed I am to you and how committed I am to this process.

But I can assure you that when you look at this and you're having to lend your campaign money, it shows that you are running out of it and you need more, obviously.

WHITFIELD: All right, Candy Crowley, joining us from Raleigh, North Carolina, thanks so much -- Tony.

HARRIS: Very good.

Dormant for 9,000 years, now awakened with a roar, eruptions at Chile's Chaiten volcano continue this week. Ash spewing 20 miles into the sky. The giant cloud forcing schools and an airport to close. More than 4,300 people have been evacuated. Those who remain have been told to wear masks to avoid breathing the ash. Man.

WHITFIELD: Wow. That's extraordinary stuff.

(WEATHER REPORT)

HARRIS: New York stock exchange now. Let's get the business day starting. The bell sounding just moments ago. As we begin the day, the Dow at 13,020, so we cross the 13,000 mark again after picking up 51 points in a nice late-day rally yesterday, Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, and this, a shocker -- campus drug raid.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're talking about trafficking. We're talking about people who were trafficking in drugs. And that's the thing that we were not prepared to turn around and turn our back on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: And in a big way -- college fraternity houses. Police say they were home to a narc ring.

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HARRIS: Executions resume in the United States. Convicted killer William Earl Lind is the first inmate put to death in more than seven months. He died by lethal injection last night in Georgia 20 years after killing his girlfriend. Opponents of the death penalty staged vigils across the state to protest. They expect a wave of executions around the country following last month's Supreme Court ruling which upheld the constitutionality of executions by lethal injection.

An alleged drug ring run out of fraternity houses. San Diego Police bust almost 100 people, most of them college students.

CNN's Thelma Gutierrez reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): University students led away in handcuffs, shackled together by San Diego investigators. A total of 75 students facing a variety of charges, including selling cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy on campus.

STEPHEN WEBER, PRES. SAN DIEGO STATE UNIV.: We're talking about trafficking. We're talking about people who were trafficking in drugs, and that's the thing that we were not prepared to turn our back on. We had to deal with this.

GUTIERREZ: The undercover investigation was called Operation Sudden Fall. It was launched by DEA agents after a student was found dead in her bedroom from a dug overdose a year ago. A second college student died from an overdose at a fraternity house during the investigation.

DAMON MOSLER, SAN DIEGO PROSECUTOR: There was main fraternity that definitely was as a group selling. A second one where a significant portion of the brothers were.

GUTIERREZ: Federal agents and university police infiltrated seven campus fraternities and say they uncovered a well-organized drug-dealing student network. Agents allege dealers communicated with customers via text messaging, and in one case advertised the sale of cocaine and listed the reduced prices.

They say they seized four pounds of cocaine, 50 pounds of marijuana, methamphetamines, 350 ecstasy pills and a shotgun and three semiautomatic pistols. The university president says this was much more than recreational drug use on campus.

WEBER: We did the right thing. We stepped up, and I think, frankly, more universities need to take this sort of proactive action.

GUTIERREZ: Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: A frightening phone message from Afghanistan.

What your hearing is the sound of battle followed by sudden silence. One family listens in horror, expecting it to be their son's last call home.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: I want to take you right now. Oh, wow. Can we listen a little bit? We've got a little steel drum going on? This is Rochester, Michigan, moments ahead of the pregame entertainment. The main event coming up, and that would be John McCain speaking there at Oakland University.

Can we get just a touch?

WHITFIELD: A drum band.

HARRIS: OK, and we just (INAUDIBLE) to have a performance going on and not hear just a little bit of it. So there's a bit of the flavor of the event. John McCain speaking there at Oakland University around the top of the hour. When he makes his remarks, we will bring those to you right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

WHITFIELD: The beat of the drums.

HARRIS: Yes.

WHITFIELD: All right, well, how about this? A family's horror. Their son serving overseas caught in a fierce firefight and it was a battle they experienced firsthand on the phone.

This story from Jim Hyde of affiliate KPTV in Portland, Oregon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANDIE PETEE, MOTHER: It's a stress that you can't even imagine.

JIM HYDE, KPTV REPORTER (voice-over): Sandie Petee is like thousands of mothers with soldiers in the war zone, hoping he'll come home safe and trying to get on with her life until then. The call on her answering machine sounded like that dream was being destroyed. PETEE: His friend died a year ago in Iraq, and I'm thinking, oh, my God, this might be the last time I hear my son's voice on the phone.

HYDE: She and her husband were out that recent Monday afternoon. She was buying flowers for the family of her son's best friend. The shooting, swearing and shouted pleas for more ammunition contrasted with pictures he'd send home from Afghanistan, Stephen hanging out with other soldiers in his MP company or posing with local kids.

JEFF PETEE, FATHER: They were pinned down and apparently his barrel was overheating. It got so hot that the front sight was red.

That's something a parent really doesn't want to hear. It's a heck of a message to get from your kid in Afghanistan.

HYDE: Later Stephen and the family figured out that he had tried to call home that day, but got no answer and left no message, so his folks' phone number was at the top of the call list. When he pushed his phone against the Humvee during an attack it redialed. The three- minute call ended abruptly.

JOHN PETEE, BROTHER: You could hear him saying stuff like he needs a new barrel, or he needs new ammo or more ammo. And at the very end, you can hear a guy, you know, incoming, RPG, then it cut off.

HYDE: As soon as the call stopped, a shaken mom and dad began calling their son in Afghanistan.

S. PETEE: And he said he was OK, and everybody that was there with was OK.

HYDE: His mom was able to reach Stephen, but it took a couple of hours.

JEFF PETEE: When we got a hold of him, he said he was sorry, he was embarrassed, don't tell grandma and don't let her hear it.

HYDE: His mom's looking forward to next month when Stephen comes home on leave.

S. PETEE: I'm glad you're home safe. I love you. I missed you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Wow, that was scary. Well, the family says that he could be back in the U.S. as early as Monday at Fort Stewart, Georgia. After a stop home in Oregon, they say his next assignment will be border security in Arizona.

HARRIS: Wow.

WHITFIELD: Cyclone survivors surrounded by death and destruction, waiting for help to arrive. We are the only Western TV network able to bring you their stories firsthand. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)