WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Hillary Clinton said Saturday we need to do all we can to help elect Sen. Barack Obama the next president of the United States.
The way, the way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand is to take our energy, our passions, our strengths and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama, the next president of the United States, she said of her former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination during a speech at the National Building Museum in Washington.
Today, as I suspend my campaign, I congratulate him on the victory he has won and the extraordinary race he has run. I endorse him and throw my full support behind him. and I ask all of you to join me in working as hard for Barack Obama as you have for me.
Earlier, she said this isn’t exactly the party I planned, but I surely like the company and I want to start today by saying how grateful I am to all of you … to all those women in their 80s and their 90s born before women who could vote who cast their votes [this year]
I will continue to stand strong with you … the dreams we share are worth fighting for, she added.
Clinton’s campaign tells CNN that 6,000 people signed up on the New York senator’s Web site to attend the speech.
Obama will not attend the event. He will spend Saturday in Chicago, Illinois.
A CNN poll released Friday shows that the party is divided after a primary season that stretched over nearly 18 months and 57 contests.
Sixty percent of Clinton supporters said they would vote for Obama, but 17 percent said they would vote for Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee and Obama’s rival in the general election. Nearly one-quarter, 22 percent, said they would not vote at all if Clinton were not the Democrats’ nominee.
The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 7.5 percentage points. The poll was conducted after Obama clinched the Democratic nomination Tuesday.
Watch Clinton’s speech on CNN.com Live at noon Saturday.
The primary battle created enormous enthusiasm among Democrats. The two candidates split nearly 36 million votes between them, easily shattering records for the number of voters who turned out for the Democratic primary season.
But the primary battles also heightened animosity between the two camps, and the at times bitter battle between Obama and Clinton revealed divisions within the party along race, class, age and gender lines. Watch Suzanne Malveaux talk about what’s next for the candidates
The source familiar with the prepared text of Clinton’s speech says she will reach out to women who backed her, many who were excited about the possibility of her becoming the first female president.
She’ll also talk a bit about the historic nature of her campaign and the progress made on behalf of women, the source said.
Exit polls of Democratic primary voters — especially in swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania — showed that Clinton’s supporters were more likely to be white, working-class, older and less educated than the voters who backed Obama. Clinton also did better with Latino voters.
The question for Clinton is whether she can persuade her supporters to back Harvard-educated Obama, the first African-American to head a major party ticket.
Clinton has vowed to do whatever she could to ensure that Democrats take the White House back and defeat John McCain, and her efforts to reach out to woman and blue-collar voters — groups with which she handily beat Obama — may be crucial if the Democrats are to take back the White House.
Ready for healing
Donna Brazile, a member of the Democratic National Committee and CNN contributor, said it was important after the hard-fought primary season that Obama and Clinton work to promote reconciliation. There’s a lot of healing to be done, she said.
Obama also has his work cut out for him.
[Obama] wants to do everything possible to assure Sen. Clinton, her supporters, her donors, the voters who went to the polls to cast their ballots, that he will champion their cause, Brazile said.
The National Organization for Women, which had endorsed Clinton, has not decided whether to endorse Obama. But the group says it’s time to heal.
Women need to see and hear a commitment from [Obama] on the issues that they care about, NOW President Kim Gandy said.
Escalating tensions
Tensions between the two camps may have also increased when some of Clinton’s most prominent supporters launched a campaign Wednesday to get her on the Democratic ticket as the vice presidential nominee, arguing that it would help unify the party. Watch analysts debate who would be the best VP for Obama
Democratic voters appear to like an Obama-Clinton ticket. A CNN poll released Friday suggested that nearly half of Democrats, 54 percent, would support a joint ticket, but 43 percent would oppose it. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
found here.
No injuries were reported.
Interstate 70 was closed in Clay County in west central Indiana, and Interstate 65 and another major route, U.S. 31, were closed near Franklin.
Meanwhile, opposition presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai defied a police ban against political rallies and was scheduled to address supporters in a town in western Zimbabwe.
