Clinton Wraps Up Final Campaign Event of Primary Season

By: Fernando Suarez
Topics: Hillary Clinton

(CBS)

From CBS News' Fernando Suarez:

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- After 18 months of campaigning across the country, Hillary Clinton ended her final campaign event of the primary season with a speech very much the same way she did when it all started, with a promise that she would be a president who would wake up every day in the White House and remember the stories of those Americans who need a president to fight for them.

Sadly for Clinton and her supporters, given the current delegate lead her opponent has over her, the likelihood of waking up at her house on Whitehaven Street in Washington, D.C. is more likely than waking up at the White House.

Clinton spoke with a solemn tone and she was clearly frustrated at one point when her uncontrollable coughing once again stopped her from continuing with her remarks. Chelsea had to come to her aid again, and after a brief pause Clinton was back on the microphone. But her coughing fit seemed like a tough moment for Clinton who has fought so hard in this campaign only to get to her last event and have difficulty finishing it. Clinton even joked while coughing, "It has been a long campaign" and it has.

In the final months of the campaign Clinton made it her mission to become the patron saint of those remaining states who wanted to cast a vote for the presidential nominee, arguably a cause she took on because having more states vote would only help Clinton's chances of gaining more votes and picking up more delegates. But in these final days it has become a message she is pushing, reminding voters that if it were not for her, the campaign would have been over weeks if not months ago.

Bill Clinton, who introduced his wife to the stage, had a similar message saying, "She was the candidate who always said everybody should vote and every vote should be counted."

Later in her remarks, Sen. Clinton echoed the point. "One of the reasons that I insisted that we continue this campaign because I want South Dakota to be here in the spotlight making sure that no one can consider you invisible to this process."

She ended her remarks with a promise that seems unlikely that she will be able keep, but she made it nonetheless. "I promise you that I will be a president and a partner and I will remember the faces I see here before me, the stories that I have heard, the places I have visited there won't be a day I won't wake up and say to myself what I will do to make sure the American dream is alive and well for everyone out there working for it. Together we can make history."

And just like that, it was over.

2 Comments Have Your Say
Email Story Send to a Friend
Share This Tell Your Friends
Tweet This Tweet This
More Share It

Add a Comment


by chuckamok June 4, 2008 11:15 AM EDT: Clintonista loyalists are certainly a bitter lot.

Y''all LOST, folks.

The Relentless Ambition Circus has finally gone down in flames, and it''s a great day for America.

The Hill-Bot Campaign Face Plant is one for the record books. Hubris, arrogance, self-delusion, sense of entitlement, and a penchant for lying ... what a recipe for failure.

No more Clinton slime in the White House. Ever.; Reply to this comment


by stirg June 3, 2008 4:05 PM EDT: You cynical SOB-get some oxygen for your brain-FDR was nominated on the third ballot at a brokered convention in 32, she can take this all the way to the convention with the popular vote in her hands-and the repubs are holding onto more revelations about Obama waiting until Obama gets the nomination-then a mushroom cloud will descend-anyone with all these dancing screaming skeletons has more to come-and you media types are not sticking it to us again like you did with bushs war. We are long done believing anything you say; Reply to this comment