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Campbell Brown
More Campaign News as Candidate Move West
Aired June 01, 2008 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The decision will fall on the shoulders of those leaders in our party empowered by the rules to vote at the Democratic convention. I do not envy the decision you must make, but a decision has to be made, and in the final assessment, I ask you to consider these questions: which candidate best represents the will of the people who voted in this historic primary?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Hillary! Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!
CLINTON: Which candidate is best able to lead to us victory in November?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: And which candidate is best able to lead our nation as our president in the face of unprecedented challenges at home and abroad?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: I am in this race because I believe I am that candidate, and I will be that president. We are winning -- we are winning the popular vote because we have stood for the core principles of our party, a party that believes in universal health care, no one left out. A party that believes hard working, middle-class families deserve a fair shot at the American dream, a party that believes we must bring our troops home from Iraq safely, responsibly, and honorably.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: A party that cherishes every child, values every family, and counts every single vote.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: We are winning against John McCain and beating him in the key states. We have what it takes to get the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the White House. And the majority of voters know who is ready on day one to serve as our president, a president...
(CHEERS)
CLINTON: A president who will bring strength, knowledge, and experience to the White House to solve our toughest problems, a president who knows firsthand the challenges of the job as well as its power to make a positive difference in people's lives. That's why I'm in this race.
Ultimately it's not about Senator Obama or me. It's about you, your hopes, your interests, your futures. It's about the directions we choose as a nation. With two wars abroad and an economic crisis at home, we have to get this right. Our country cannot afford four more years of more of the same.
So today...
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: ... Puerto Ricans across this beautiful place that I have come to enjoy so much made your voices heard and your votes counted. And for that, I want to thank my co-chairs, Senate president Kenneth McClintock and Puerto Rico Democratic chair Roberto Franz, political directors Rafi Rodriguez Equero(ph), and Representative Jorge Colvo(ph).
Election representatives, Representative Junior Gonzalez (ph) and Renee Estades(ph), Jose Alfredo Hernandez Mayoral(ph), former governor, Carlos Romero-Barcelo, Miguel Atell(ph), Rahillo Ramos(ph) and Luzzette Cabanez(ph), and special thank you to coordinator, Ramon Luis Hugo(ph), and deputy coordinator, Francisco Dominich(ph), and adviser Jeffrey Faro(ph).
And I want to thank all of my volunteers, my staff, my supporters, everyone who waved at us as we caravanned all day yesterday.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: And I want to reiterate what I have said across Puerto Rico. Together in my first term, we will finally enable the status question to be resolved based on the principles that government should be representative at all levels, and the people of Puerto Rico deserve the opportunity to choose from among all of the options. Together...
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: ... we will work to ensure that Puerto Rico is treated equally when it comes to Medicare and Medicaid and the children's health insurance program, tax breaks for creating jobs, and more. I will be your champion.
And I want to thank all of my friends and our labor unions, all of them, who have done so much for us. It has been a joy to work with every single union that has been here supporting me. We would not be here without you tonight.
And I want to say a special word of thanks to the Hispanic community, not just in Puerto Rico, but across the United States. I am so honored you have stood by me throughout this campaign. I am grateful for your love, your friendship, and your support.
What we have seen in this campaign and what we have always known is that Hispanic Americans, Latinos from every part of Latin America, care deeply about the future of the United States.
You contribute so much to the greatness of this country, to business and academia, to labor, to the professions, to entertainment, to sports, to every part of society. And you have also contributed greatly to expanding the horizons and the diversity of our country.
I am so grateful to you, and I am so proud of the support you have given me.
I also wish to thank...
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: ... my family for their incredible love and support, Bill and Chelsea, my mother, my brothers, Hugh and Tony, my sister-in-laws, Maria and Megan, and all who are helping here in Puerto Rico and South Dakota and Montana.
Because we are in this to choose a candidate who we know will not only stand up for us but unite us. We will be strengthened by the enthusiasm of the millions of people who have voted and volunteered in all of these contests. We are propelled by this unique moment in history. The campaign has been an extraordinary journey, and I am grateful for every day of it.
Every single day something happens, which reinforces my commitment and lifts my spirits. It might be a young child who's introduced and says, I want to grow up to be president. It might be a young mother who says, I have no health insurance. I hope you will help me. It might be an older man, who says, I am a veteran, but I cannot get the help I deserve.
Every story like that reinforces my commitment to what we are doing together. People deserve better from their government. The people of Puerto Rico deserve better from the federal government.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: So I call on you to travel this final stretch with me, to join me as we take America back and lead our country with confidence and optimism into this new century. Let's keep fighting for our dreams. Let's keep fighting for what we believe. Let's keep fighting for one another. Let's keep fighting for America. America is worth fighting for.
Thank you, and God bless you and God bless America.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hillary Clinton speaking to her supporters in Puerto Rico. Ricky Martin, the singer who has endorsed Hillary Clinton, we hear him in the background. A very excited crowd, a very impressive win for Hillary Clinton in Puerto Rico today by more than a 2-1 margin, at least with 76 percent of the precincts reporting.
She has 68 percent of the vote in Puerto Rico to 32 percent for Barack Obama.
You see her there. She says she would be the stronger candidate against John McCain going forward. She insists she has a larger popular vote in all of these contests going back to Iowa in early January than Barack Obama.
We're going to be checking that shortly to see what the actual popular vote is right now with 76 percent of the precincts in Puerto Rico reporting.
Two more contests still on the agenda -- the last two contests in South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday, and then it's all over. It's up to those superdelegates to decide who will be the Democratic presidential nominee.
Barack Obama has a pretty commanding lead right now. I think it's fair to say her only hope would be to get about 90 percent of those undeclared superdelegates or if she can manage to convince many of those superdelegates to actually go ahead and change their minds. They're entitled to do so if they want to. No indication that they're planning on doing so anytime soon.
She acknowledges she is behind in the delegate count, but she insists she's ahead in the popular vote.
What counts, though, going forward isn't the popular vote. What counts is the delegates, the pledged delegates and the superdelegates. And that's what she's working for. She's got a tough struggle ahead of her over the next few days.
She made no mention of what some of her aides were saying over the past day or two, which is that they were very unhappy with the Democratic National Committee's compromise on Michigan, how to allocate the delegates in Michigan, one of the disputed states.
They have been suggesting she was leaving open the option to go ahead and appeal that decision to the credentials committee that meets at the end of June, maybe even go all the way to the convention in Denver. She didn't even refer to that at all.
Terry McAuliffe, her campaign chairman, made that threat earlier today here on CNN, and we also heard it from Harold Ickes yesterday. He's a member of the rules committee, one of her top strategists.
She avoided that kind of language in her remarks.
But they're all excited listening to Ricky Martin's music performance in Puerto Rico right now. They'll be heading over to South Dakota and Montana over the next couple days to try to score some support there as this long primary season begins to wind down.
We're going to continue to watch Hillary Clinton at this rally in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We'll update you on the actual votes, on what's going on. We'll also take a close look and see if she's right. She insists she is leading in the popular vote right now against Barack Obama. And what, if anything, that really means when all the political dust settles.
We have much more to cover, including our analysts, the best political team on television. Remember, CNNpolitics.com is where you can go to make sure that you have all the latest information as well. We'll take a quick break. More of our coverage from the CNN center.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Welcome back to the CNN Election Center. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting.
It's been a big day for Hillary Clinton. She wins decisively the Puerto Rico Democratic primary, but the turnout was not as huge as she would have liked. We're going to take a look at one of her major assertions in the speech that she just delivered before her campaign rally, whether or not she is ahead as far as the popular vote is concerned.
Here is the vote right now in Puerto Rico, with 76 percent of the precincts reporting.
She has a more than 2-1 advantage, 68 percent to 32 percent, nearly 190,000 for Hillary Clinton, 88,800 or so for Barack Obama.
You look at the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, that whole commonwealth shows light blue. Those are -- that indicates those are all the Senate districts in Puerto Rico -- they don't call them counties -- where she is ahead.
Barack Obama's not ahead anywhere in Puerto Rico right now.
A very impressive victory for Hillary Clinton. But is it enough to sustain her race? There's two more contests going on.
Now, she did say -- we all heard her say, she has scored a popular vote victory over Barack Obama over all of these contests going back the past six months.
Let's check that out. And to do so, we've got three scenarios, because this issue is very, very much open to interpretation.
In this first popular vote scenario, how have we calculated these numbers? We've included all the primary results, all the Florida results as cast now that Florida's vote is not going to be considered legitimate by the DNC.
Hillary Clinton gets all the Michigan votes cast for her. Her name was on the ballot. We've given the uncommitted Michigan votes to Barack Obama, because generally is what the DNC decided to do by allocating those delegates to him.
We've not included in this scenario number one any of the caucus results, because many of those caucus states have never made official results to begin with.
Under this scenario, Hillary Clinton gets 17,461,000 or so votes to Barack Obama's 17,244,000. That's a couple hundred thousand or so votes more for Hillary Clinton. This, by the way, does include Puerto Rico, the votes that have been officially counted in Puerto Rico today.
So, she's ahead in this scenario by about 200,000 votes.
In the second scenario, we've included all of the same things, except we've decided to include our estimate, our best estimate, of the caucus votes as well and the caucus states. And in this scenario, scenario number two, including Puerto Rico today, Barack Obama slightly ahead, 17,941,000 for him to 17,873,000 for Hillary Clinton. And once again, this does include the Puerto Rico votes that have been counted so far.
So, he is slightly ahead under this scenario of the popular vote.
Now, the third and final scenario we've tried to tally includes all of the above, but we've given zero votes to Barack Obama in Michigan, because his name wasn't on the ballot and he didn't get any votes in Michigan. We've also included our estimate of the caucuses, and under this scenario, Hillary Clinton comes out on top, 17,873,000 to 17,703,000 for Barack Obama.
So under scenarios one and three, she has the popular vote. Under scenario two, he has the popular vote.
So, Anderson, you can see, this is -- this is not necessarily pure science. This is open to some interpretation.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Yes, it certainly allows her supporters to say she has the popular vote, allows Obama's supporters to say, well, if you calculate it a different way, he has the popular vote.
How do you look at it, Jeff Toobin?
JEFF TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Well, first of all, just to display my graph of the obvious. But it is amazing after 48-plus states it's that close.
COOPER: Yes.
TOOBIN: With 35 million votes cast and we're talking about 10,000, 20,000 votes here and there.
The problem for her if she is even ahead by whatever calculation you want to make, it's not by a margin that is going to astonish people and change their mind. But, it's just really, really close.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: And, you know, the rules are the rules. The rules are not about the popular vote. The rules are about delegate count. And in that metric, our favorite word, she's not winning.
And so I think that the case on popular vote is part of the closing argument that she's making to superdelegates about her electability, and it's also part of the history of this race and the way that Hillary Clinton wants to write the history of this race. And that's going to be her calling card.
COOPER: She said in her speech three things you should consider when deciding who to vote for: which candidate best represents the will of the people who voted, and then without using her exact words, who can win and who can lead our nation.
DONNA BRAZILE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Those are good questions, clearly, and I'm sure that the remaining superdelegates will be able to answer some of those questions in the affirmative in terms of the candidate that they decide to back.
But, you know, I like to think that Senator Clinton has run a good campaign as relates to getting out her vote, being able to come up with a message, especially in the closing weeks of the campaign that has resonated with a very large majority of Americans.
But at the same time the metric that we use, at least those of us who are, you know, delegates is who won the number of delegates, 2118 or 2117 depending on how it all went.
That's the metric that I will also use.
TOOBIN: It's also worth pointing out that there is some history going back to Ronald Reagan, and even Gerald Ford, that the nominee of the party loses the last few primaries. That has happened often. It happened to Bill Clinton. It happened to Ronald Reagan. It happened to Gerald ford.
And -- so I don't know how significant ultimately it is that the last primaries went in the direction of the loser.
COOPER: We're going to have more exit polls coming up. We're going to take a short break. Our coverage continues.
Also you can check out CNNpolitics.com for all the exit polls and all raw numbers coming in. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Welcome back to the CNN Election Center.
Let's take a look and see where the all-important delegate count stands right now. John Roberts is here with our magic wall looking at the impact of Puerto Rico on what's going to be decisive over the next few days presumably.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's take a look first of all at how she's doing in Puerto Rico and what that's going to mean in terms of delegates. Fifty-five pledged delegates available in these Senate districts which is how the vote tally comes in.
BLITZER: How they divide up the delegate, 55 of them.
ROBERTS: How they divide up the delegates.
In these areas where there are four delegates, like, my guess, district -- Arecibo district, the Ponce, Guayama, the Humacao district.
She is past the threshold where she would split the delegates in half. So in an area where there are four delegates she would need to get 63 percent of the votes so that it wasn't a 50/50 split. She's above that so she is going -- in these areas get the maximum number of delegates that she can.
Now what does that mean when we look at the overall delegate math here? And let's just bring it up and pop in Puerto Rico.
Here's sort of the split that we've got right now. Look about like that, that almost 70 percent split. So, she's gotten some more like that. So, 43 delegates to 18. That's an estimation of how they may eventually divide up.
BLITZER: A very decisive win for her.
ROBERTS: Yes, right now we're not there, but at the end it could divide up like that.
So, if we add in the next contests which are on Tuesday, Barack Obama's a little bit ahead, so let's give him, say, 12 delegates to Hillary Clinton's 10. And in South Dakota he is ahead as well, but perhaps not by as much. So let's divide those up 12-11.
And then we'll chart that on the larger graph.
Right now Hillary Clinton, as it stands with that new finish line of 2118, is 241 back. Barack Obama is 65 back. This was before tonight anyways.
So, we plug in the results that we've just put in today, estimation of how they'll break down and what happens on Tuesday. And here's Barack Obama here and here's Hillary Clinton in the top graph. There are some nine delegates left. Most of these are left over from John Edwards.
So we'll just give a few of those to Barack Obama and we'll give a few to Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama now has 2,090, needs 2118 to cross the line. Hillary Clinton still back at 1,935. 205 superdelegates left.
And we heard that grand appeal by Hillary Clinton there in her speech in San Juan to the superdelegates.
But look at how few superdelegates Barack Obama needs, there's 22, gets him very close to the line. Let's peel off three more, maybe another five, and he's there. So all he needs is about 30 superdelegates, Wolf, and he's across the line.
She would need the overwhelming majority of these superdelegates to get to the line. Just about 90 percent, 88, 90 percent. She's done better in Puerto Rico than the initial polls indicated that she was going to, so, it's not quite as far, but it's still a very huge hurdle that she has to jump over in order to get to the nomination. BLITZER: Really her only hope we can think about it that she can convince some of the superdelegates who have already declared for Barack Obama can change their minds and flip and go to her.
I can't see another scenario where she gets the delegate math.
ROBERTS: And look at what happened after yesterday's decision by the DNC rules committee. Two other superdelegates early this morning declared for Barack Obama. There haven't been any more who have declared for Hillary Clinton.
And as the panel has been talking about, a lot of superdelegates appear to be holding their powder. And we've talked to a couple of them from Massachusetts and North Carolina who say we are going to make the decision the morning of June 4th. After all is said and done, then we'll announce who we're for.
Donna Brazile has been saying she'll probably do the same thing, as have other superdelegates.
So it could be after the final contests on the 3rd that we see those superdelegates moving en masse one way or another. But when it comes to the math, Barack Obama just needs a few and he's across the line.
BLITZER: All right...
ROBERTS: Hillary Clinton needs the vast majority.
BLITZER: Let's look at the Electoral College scenario right now. She's made a point of insisting, you know what, I can win the Electoral College more easily than Barack Obama can in a race against John McCain.
ROBERTS: OK, let's put it up. Here's the Electoral College. This is as it was in 2004.
BLITZER: This was the results between Bush and Kerry.
ROBERTS: Bush and Kerry. Hillary Clinton representing John Kerry. John McCain representing George Bush.
This is just a starting point.
BLITZER: And 270 votes in the Electoral College are needed to be elected president.
ROBERTS: And let's highlight the swing states. So these are the battlegrounds where this election is going to be fought.
Hillary Clinton says I do very well in Florida. There's 27 electoral votes in Florida. George Bush won that. She changes that she's over the line. But let's say she doesn't win that. She comes up to Ohio, there's 20 there, a Democratic governor in Ohio. She says I do well in Ohio, I can turn that. She's across the line. She could take a different route, perhaps. She wins West Virginia; she did well in West Virginia and perhaps she wins Colorado and New Mexico. She can get across the line.
Her argument is that she can win in these swing states where Barack Obama can't. Here's Barack Obama. He says, maybe I can come along here. I did well in Virginia. And I could turn Virginia, which wouldn't quite get him across the line. So, he needs something else. That's where this western strategy comes in. Could he turn New Mexico? That would get him to 270. Could he turn Colorado? That would get him across the line. John McCain says, wait a second here. We've got a Republican governor up in Minnesota. May I can take that one. Barack Obama comes back and says well let's try the western strategy again, Colorado. It doesn't get him there. So, Hillary Clinton is suggesting I'm stronger in these states where --
BLITZER: By the way, that's 269-269 would be a tie and wouldn't that go to the House of Representatives?
ROBERTS: You wouldn't want to get there. Hillary Clinton says I'm strong in this area. This is where I can win. I can win in these white, working-class states. I can beat John McCain. Hillary Clinton saying, maybe I can grab Ohio. Certainly I could make a play for Florida as well. So, that's the challenge that Barack Obama has got, is to say to these super delegates, I can win all of these states. But, Wolf, maybe, you know, we can drill down to the county level just quickly here and show something.
Let's take a look, for instance, bring this back out, to, let's say, what happened in Stark County. Hillary Clinton slammed Barack Obama, 59-38. But if we take a look at what happened here in the '04 election, John Kerry beat George Bush in Stark County, lost the state but still beat him here in Stark County. So Hillary Clinton is saying I'm beating Barack Obama in a place where a Democrat needs to win and able to be able to take the White House.
Same thing here in West Virginia. Let's go to the '08 election here, this was the primary. Kanawa County, she took him 62 percent to 34 percent. In the '04 election, John Kerry narrowly lost to George Bush 49 percent to 51 percent and the same thing if we come back out here to Pennsylvania. Go back to the '08 election. This is a very important marker as well, Allegheny County here. Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama 54 to 46 percent. In the '04 election, John Kerry beat George Bush 57 to 42 percent. So she's saying to Barack Obama, you're losing in states that - in areas and counties that Democrats have won and need to win in order to win the election.
And perhaps the most critical of all is this area here. And, Wolf, if you've ever been out on the campaign trail, and I know you have, this area here in the general election, you go to see Florida. That's the part of Florida you go to see. The I-4 corridor right here between Tampa and Cape Canaveral. You go back and forth. You spend time in Tampa. You spend time in Orlando, St. Petersburg. You go to the villages up there. When I was on the Bush campaign in 2004, when we went to Florida, that's the only place we went. Hillary Clinton won that, 2004 George Bush won the majority of it. She's again saying, I can win here in Florida. I can win in the I-4 corridor. I can win in the western part of West Virginia. I can win out there in Allegheny County. I can win in Ohio. Barack Obama can't. Therefore, he cannot win the election. So, that's the argument that she's going to make over the next three days to those super delegates. He's got to have a compelling counterargument to that. But, again, he only needs fewer than 30 super delegates and he's across the line.
BLITZER: I still want to remind our viewers that you can go to cnnpolitics.com and what you've been basically doing and look at all these various scenarios. Cnnpolitics.com and you can get all the latest numbers coming in as well. John Roberts, thanks very much.
Bill Schneider is here. He's been going through our exclusive exit poll numbers in Puerto Rico. What else are you picking up?
BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We just heard Hillary Clinton say to the voters in Puerto Rico that if she becomes president, she would like to see Puerto Rico be able to vote for president in the next presidential election. They can't vote for president now, just can cast votes for the nominee. How would that happen? Puerto Rico would have to become a state under the constitution. It would have to become the 51st state. Now, that had a very important impact on the way people voted and on her victory today in Puerto Rico. Sixty percent of the voters in Puerto Rico said they think Puerto Rico ought to become a state. And let's take a look at how they voted.
Eighty one percent for Hillary Clinton, only 18 percent for Barack Obama. What about those voters in today's primaries who thought Puerto Rico should remain a commonwealth, which is the status it currently has and it cannot vote for president. Among voters who thought the status quo is good, it was an even split, Clinton, 50 percent, Obama 50 percent. So, clearly the view that Puerto Rico would like to become the 51st state had a lot to do with Hillary Clinton's sweeping victory of that state today and she paid them back by saying she wants to see them be able to vote for president in the next election.
BLITZER: All right, we'll see if that actually is implemented, see what happens on that front. Bill, thanks very much. Bill Schneider, reporting for us.
Remember, cnnpolitics.com. You can get a whole lot more information on what's going on. We'll take a short break and continue our coverage from the CNN election center. Anderson Cooper is standing by with the best political team on television. We still have lots to digest on this important day.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And welcome back. Our coverage continues here. We are watching the results still coming in. And you can watch along at home at cnnpolitics.com. All the exit poll results where they have exclusive exit polls as well as all the actual raw vote tallies come in. As we try to kind of look back on this whole day, we've heard from Barack Obama. We've heard from Hillary Clinton. Jeff Toobin, what do you make of what happened today?
JEFF TOOBIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think the Hispanic vote was key to in Puerto Rico.
COOPER: That's your --
TOOBIN: I think she won. It's another important victory.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Leslie Sanchez --
LESLIE SANCHEZ, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: We're excited. We'll talk anything, actually. We're just glad you're here.
Did we learn anything in Puerto Rico that has application for moving forward now as to what happens now?
SANCHEZ: We did a few different things. I think there are three things. One we knew that she did incredibly well, Hillary Clinton, because of the status issue. You talked about that and that was on top of the minds of a lot of people. She said she would resolve that in her first year. That was tremendously important to Puerto Rican voters. It's not just Puerto Rico. You've got figure the fact that this is really having implications for a lot of mainlanders, in Chicago, Pennsylvania, definitely different parts of Florida. You have your New York, New Jersey, but Puerto Ricans live in very strategic states and are very powerful and can mobilize. We've seen that. I do think something that gets lost is the fact that Barack did have the endorsement of the governor (INAUDIBLE) there, who is under indictment for 19 counts of, like, false, you know -- mispropriety (ph) of funds and the fact that she was arm and arm with him campaigning with somebody that has a 64 percent disapproval rating definitely had an impact on his ability to perform well in Puerto Rico. The last part is, if you ask these people, this is in the exit polls we have, if you could vote for somebody other than Clinton in November, 7 percent said they would vote for McCain. But you ask the same question about Barack Obama, 18 percent would vote for John McCain. That is consistent with a lot of data that the McCain camp probably has that shows 17, 18 percent of Democrats would cross over. So, you're seeing that consistently, that appeal.
HILARY ROSEN, DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANT: Well, I think she's right. But what I also thought was so interesting was Hillary Clinton's speech tonight, which was lovely towards the folks in Puerto Rico, but it really was a larger gray shift (ph) almost -- not quite subdued but friendly speech where she didn't, as some might have predicted, she didn't attack the rules committee decision. She talked about, yes, she has the popular vote and she's got a case to make, but she was gentle and she was friendly. And I think her tone and demeanor sort of said a lot about where she's thinking. She knows that she's got about 48 more hours to make her case. She knows who the audience is. And I think over the next -- I've already been told by the Clinton campaign this afternoon, she's on the phone to super delegates. She's doing that. And at the same time, you know, the campaign is thinking about their next step.
ALEX CASTELLANOS, REPUBLICAN CONSULTANT: This is a very different speech than, frankly, I expected and that I thought -- I've heard Hillary Clinton give. It was not a damn the torpedoes, full-speed- ahead speech. It was laudatory. She spent more time at the end thanking people, not just in Puerto Rico, but everywhere. Like to thank Hispanic voters, et cetera. She was, you know, it wasn't a concession speech. But it was certainly a speech that was a step to keeping that door open.
ROSEN: It was a speech by somebody who heard everybody say for the last 24 hours, she's going to blow things up. She's going to go to the convention. She's going to make us all miserable. She obviously heard that. And I think her speech tonight was very much intended to let people know that's not her intention. She does care about this country. She cares about the issues. She cares about how this thing goes forward.
COOPER: Jamal, what happens now? How does it go forward?
JAMAL SIMMONS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I think the Obama campaign would say that they feel pretty confident they've got enough super delegates. They feel pretty confident in what happened in Montana, South Dakota maybe a little bit closer, but he'll do well in South Dakota. The worst he'll do is a split. So, if you get there and he crosses this threshold, I think you'll see a bunch of more super delegates, a river of them, kind of come down the hill and this thing will start to really kind of wrap up. At that point. Hillary Clinton's go to make a decision about how much she really wants to push the envelope, but I get every sense, like Hillary does, that, you know, Hillary Clinton's a team player. This thing's going to close out. I don't think she'll go all the way to the convention. She doesn't want to be looked at as a sore loser.
SANCHEZ: I heard a different speech! I heard the same speech. She said, we are winning. We are winning the swing states. She made a very strong, compelling argument about why she is a strong, viable candidate. I think the part that doesn't get reported is what Hillary was saying. There's a lot of wheeling and dealing, the calls that are being made right now are all the wheeling and dealing with the super delegates. There are promises of jobs, there's promises of opportunities. There's promises of influence, whose ear will they have? It's really this back door meetings with those supers that is getting negotiated that we don't have access to.
SIMMONS: In all fairness, Anderson, the Clintons are a pretty interesting couple.
COOPER: There's been a lot of analysis over the years. And never have I heard it quite said --
SIMMONS: I like to zero in on it. Bill Clinton has not lost an election since he lost his gubernatorial re-election back in the early 1980s. He has not lost. You know, they don't have a -- they're not very familiar with what this feels like. You can give them a little bit of leeway about not understanding how to close the campaign at the end. They're going to fight to the last day and I think after that day, they'll then come around.
COOPER: There's also a battle over their legacy and how you leave is often as important as how you run.
ROSEN: And I believe that Hillary Clinton is paying a lot of attention to that and, you know, we're talking some about the Clintons, and there was mention this afternoon about the "Vanity Fair" article about former President Clinton. But I think if there is one thing Hillary Clinton has done in this campaign, she has re-branded the Clinton name. She has put herself up there, not just as an equal, but in essence the contemporary Clinton. The one that's still involved in moving and doing things in politics and still very much in the game. And I think that that has been a huge accomplishment for her.
SIMMONS: This is why I think that she may not be vice president, why she may not want to be vice president. Because she just got out from the umbrella of Bill Clinton, why would she want to get up under the wing of Barack Obama? She now has a brand that's all her own that she can go forward with.
COOPER: Roland Martin also standing by in Houston. Roland, I know you wanted to comment.
ROLAND MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think that this was sort of the last speech you make to all the super delegates. The bottom line is there are no more arguments you can make. The DNC rules committee decided yesterday Michigan and Florida are now involved in this. We had to go through three scenarios to break down the whole popular vote deal when actually for the delegates it's only one scenario. I just think this is one of those areas where she now has to sit back and see what happens on Tuesday and see what happens come Wednesday morning, because there's nothing else that you can say. There's nothing else that they can come up with, nothing the Obama folks can come up with. Both candidates will sit back and say, all right, how do we simply see how this thing comes out. She has a very tough row to hoe and 90 percent of the votes as John Roberts said are going to have to fall her way to pull this off.
CASTELLANOS: I think there is something else she can say and that is that Barack Obama is not closing strong as I think Gloria Borger has mentioned. So far we've seen in these last primaries, it's not that Hillary Clinton is beating Barack Obama, it's that Barack Obama has a problem getting, you know, non-elite votes. I mean, if America's made up of Starbucks -- people that get their coffee at Starbucks and people that get their coffee at McDonald's, you know, Barack Obama can't win McDonald's.
UNKNOWN: If he wins Montana and South Dakota, then what do you say?
MARTIN: Alex, here's the problem, here's the problem with that analysis. What we have seen throughout this campaign, from Obama and Clinton, is that both of them have such strong assets and the states that set up perfectly for him he wins. The ones that set up perfectly for her, she wins. I think probably if you are a Clinton person, you would sit here and wish like, man, I wish we had four or five of these states who voted in May to early February versus voting here in April or May. That's how close it is, because they appeal to just different and unique constituencies. ROSEN: Roland's discussion is exactly what I think is going to end up being a large part of the dialogue over the next, you know, several weeks, which is, how do you -- how do you merge, you know, the very clear and distinct talents of these two leaders. And, you know, again, this is going to be something that they have to decide. But there are going to be an awful lot of Clinton supporters like me who would love to see them go down this thing together.
COOPER: We're going to take a short break. Our coverage continues, coverage online as well, cnnpolitics.com. Stay tuned. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: It's been almost four hours since they closed the polls in Puerto Rico; 91 percent of the precincts have now reported, 68 percent going to Hillary Clinton to 32 percent for Barack Obama a more than 2-1 advantage for Hillary Clinton in Puerto Rico. Let's take a look at the actual votes that were tallied on this day for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, 238,000 for Hillary Clinton, 110,000 for Barack Obama. This is what they would call a decisive win, a very impressive win, over Barack Obama by Hillary Clinton in Puerto Rico, at stake -- a total of 63 delegates in Puerto Rico, 55 of them pledged delegates, eight super delegates. Her margin right now is about 128,000 or so, as you can see. She was hoping for an even bigger margin to build up her advantage in the popular vote. We'll see what happens with the remaining 9 percent of the precincts. Take a look at the whole island, the whole commonwealth of Puerto Rico right there. You see that light blue. Hillary Clinton is ahead in all of those Senate districts, as they're called there, as opposed to counties. So, this has been a very, very lopsided win for Hillary Clinton in Puerto Rico. Two more contests to go, remember, Tuesday in Montana and South Dakota.
Bill Schneider, you're here, you're looking at some of these exclusive exit polls we did in Puerto Rico today. What are you learning?
SCHNEIDER: We're learning that her sweep was indeed as you described it, lopsided. She carried virtually every category, including categories of voters where Obama in other states has been strong. For instance, look at men and women. Women usually vote for Hillary Clinton, but men are good for Obama. But here, 69 percent of men, 68 percent of women voted for Hillary Clinton. Young voters, an Obama category. 64 percent for Clinton. Older voters, 77 percent for Hillary Clinton. She carried poor voters. She carried wealthy voters. She carried college-educated, non-college voters and she carried voters across all the issues.
What was your top issue concern when you voted today? Those voters who said health care, 75 percent for Clinton, the economy, 72 and iraq, which is of concern that usually delivers a lot of voters to Barack Obama, she still carried that category 58 percent. Now, she carried virtually every category across the commonwealth of Puerto Rico. In fact, we did a check. She does -- has done well with Latino voters all across the United States, state after state. We wanted to see if there were states where Obama carried the Latino vote. We found three, in Virginia and Connecticut where the Latino vote was very small. They did go for Obama in our exit polls and in Obama's home state of Illinois. They went for Obama. Other than that, the Latino vote has been consistent for Hillary Clinton.
BLITZER: Thanks very much for that, Bill. Thanks for all your excellent work on this day. Anderson, it's interesting that Barack Obama doesn't do well with a lot of these white, working-class voters in Pennsylvania or Ohio, West Virginia, some of these states, but he does very well with those same white, working class voters in states like Montana or South Dakota or Wisconsin or Minnesota or Oregon or Washington state. And I wonder if our analysts have a good explanation of it. I've been trying to figure that one out. And I don't have an easy explanation.
COOPER: We also saw that today with the crowd of some 2,200 people at the Corn palace assembled watching Barack Obama. Why do you think that is?
GLORIA BORGER, SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It's funny about a month or a month and a half ago, "The New York Times" Sunday magazine had a piece about sort of the demographics of Obama which shows that he does do well in with white, rural voters. This was written, I want to say, pre-the bitter remarks.
COOPER: Right.
BORGER: And that their theory was, not my theory, but this demographer's theory, was that that may be because these are areas without racial tension and that they're very welcoming to Barack Obama. But I don't know if that's true or not. It's just someone's theory.
COOPER: Suzanne Malveaux, super delegates watching today in what happened in Puerto Rico, what's the takeaway for them?
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are people who have been on the phone with Senator Clinton and obviously, they are looking at this and they say, there are so many strengths that she has when it comes to the female vote, when it comes to a wide range of people and obviously the Hispanic vote that they feel that Barack Obama really needs Hillary Clinton. And they talked to her and they say, look, you know, we may decide that we're going to go over to Barack Obama because it seems like he's the inevitable nominee. But we strongly feel like he's not going to win without your support. And that's why you see kind of --
COOPER: These are super delegates you're hearing from.
MALVEAUX: These are super delegates and that's why you see kind of this groundswell, this almost a move if you will to get Barack Obama's attention, get his campaign's attention to consider this option of putting her on the ticket.
TOOBIN: But she has never said that she will not support Barack Obama. In fact, she has always said that she'll be a good Democrat. So, I think the odds of there being some sort of public breach between them is nonexistent even if he doesn't pick her as vice president.
MALVEAUX: I don't think there's going to be a public breach, but it really depends on how much she's going to campaign, how strong will she campaign for him.
BORGER: She has to do everything because this is about her political future too. She can't just sort of sit back.
ROBERTS: The argument that people make against this so-called dream ticket is if you have a strong a candidate as Hillary Clinton on the ticket with Barack Obama or vice versa if she were somehow to become the nominee, then that person is always in the shadows in the White House and there may be a lot of second-guessing that goes on. If one of them makes the decision as president, some people may start second- guessing that to say, well, what would have happened if the other one was president? What would the decision have been? And the last thing you want when you're the president of the United States is a very strong vice president, in the picture with you, to -- to give people the idea that maybe there's a second choice here. You want to -- you want a vice president who can step into the job at any moment, carry on your policies, but you want them well in the background.
COOPER: I've also heard from Barack Obama supporters who said she is antithetical to the core message of not politics as usual.
BORGER: Right. And change and all that. It would be interesting to figure out what Hillary Clinton's view of the vice presidency is. I mean, if you recall when her husband was in office, she spent a lot of time competing with the vice president of the United States, Al Gore, on lots of policy issues, you know, he was talking about NAFTA. She was talking about health care. And so she has a real view of what a powerful vice president can be and what a -- how you can undermine a vice president also to a certain degree. So, I would be curious to know what she really thinks of that job.
ROBERTS: Remember what John McCain said when asked if he wanted to be vice president so many years ago. He said the job of the vice president is to go to funerals and get up every day and inquire as to the health of the president and no thanks, I don't want that job. Cheney broke the mold of that and I think that Hillary Clinton as a running mate would break the mold yet again.
TOOBIN: Whatever else you think about Dick Cheney, he did a lot more than go to funerals.
ROBERTS: But he was still mostly in the background.
TOOBIN: But he exerted a lot of authority and he turned that job into something it really had been.
ROBERTS: But he wasn't out there getting in front of the president, and that is what people think the danger would be if Hillary Clinton were the running mate for Barack Obama.
COOPER: That is the risk. Let's check in with Wolf Blitzer. BLITZER: Anderson Cooper, thanks very much. We'll see you on "AC 360" tomorrow night. John Roberts, we'll see bright and early on "American Morning" 6:00 tomorrow morning. You better get some sleep right now.
Let's update our viewers on what we know, 91 percent of the precinct reporting, 68 percent for Hillary Clinton; 32 percent in Puerto Rico for Barack Obama, a decisive, impressive, lopsided win for Hillary Clinton in Puerto Rico. We'll see what it means and we should know in the next couple days. You know, it's been a long ride for all of us. It was almost exactly one year ago today, almost exactly one year ago, take a look at this. This was the scene as the Democrats debated. The Democrats debated in New Hampshire. I moderated that debate, the first one we did here at CNN. You see all of those Democratic candidates who were on the stage at that time.
I remember vividly that debate in New Hampshire. There were a lot of people there and it will end exactly one year later or perhaps not, but the last race will be on Tuesday in Montana and in South Dakota. What a year it has been. If somebody would have told me a year ago when I moderated that Democratic presidential debate with all those candidates up there, that on June 3rd we would still been covering what is going on, I would have said you're crazy. But you know, crazy stuff happens.
We'll be back here tomorrow in "The Situation Room" 4:00 p.m. Eastern. Tuesday our coverage starts 8 p.m. Eastern from Montana and South Dakota. Let's hand it over to Rick Sanchez. He's picking up our coverage at the CNN center. Rick.
