GUAYNABO, Puerto Rico – Miles from the Democratic Party’s machinations to decide whether she will get her votes counted in the disputed primaries of Florida and Michigan, Hillary Clinton on Saturday smiled and clapped her way through the streets and small towns of Puerto Rico.
Clinton, who trails front-runner Barack Obama by what most consider an insurmountable gap in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, waved from a campaign truck at bystanders who gathered in the steamy afternoon heat to cheer her on.
Accompanied by loudspeakers blaring “Hillary Clinton, La Proxima Presidenta,” pounding music and trucks carrying photographers, television crews and reporters, Clinton cruised the palm tree-lined streets in towns around San Juan for hours past fruit vendors and fisherman who paused to point and smile.
Supporters honked car horns and waved banners while small children jumped up and down. One woman rushed up to Clinton and presented her with a giant bouquet of flowers.
“Si, si, si,” exclaimed Blanca Rivera, 69, standing by the side of the road in Guaynabo, when asked if she planned to vote for the New York senator in Sunday’s primary. “Si, si, si.”
Clinton is heavily favored to win Puerto Rico’s primary, although the result is not expected to make a significant dent in Obama’s lead among delegates to the party’s nominating convention.
Clinton remained well out of questioning range of reporters who might have asked her about the Democratic Party’s rules committee, meeting in Washington to decide the future of the primary results in Florida and Michigan. Clinton won both primaries, but the contests were held earlier than party rules allowed and the results were invalidated.
Click here for more Reuters 2008 political coverage.
Photo: REUTERS/Ana Martinez (Clinton appears at a rally in Puerto Rico)
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I voted for Obama in the primary, but if he picks Hillary as #2, I will definitely vote against him in the election.
- Posted by Steve JonesKayle - yet more Clinton misinformation? Give us all a break: it is the truth that will set America free - not your brand of fantasy football!
zMark above is uncomfortably right in what he asserts.
Let’s hear it for the truth!
Ignore the lies!
- Posted by The Truth Is...Yes someday it would be nice to have a woman as the President, but not HRC. She is abrasive and has math delusions, like saying she is ahead in the popular vote. Would you really want her to keep track of the US checkbook? Those overdraft charges could kill us, literally?
- Posted by zMarkThe democrats are delusional if they think Obama is going to win in November. No matter what his popularity is now, American has not progressed that far that Obama will be elected president. In November when the people go into the voting booth they will not be punching the Obama slot. The African American populations, including the super delegates are voting for Obama because he is black. They hear his rhetoric and it sound good and they have the “our time now attitude”. Most are not interested in his qualifications or his plans for this country. This is a person who has no national political experience; stayed in the senate for 18 months before jumping out to run for president. He has yet to state the changes he is going to bring about. Yet the democrats like hearing the word “change” flow from his lips. All his speeches sound just like church sermons. The super delegates are so smitten with him it like their brains have been replaced with their rear end.
- Posted by Kayle