Let It Be, Says Hillary Clinton
From CBS News' Ryan Corsaro:
CHARLESTON, W.VA. -- As she strolled through geraniums and lilacs at the Capitol Market here today, she came across a man, patient and perspiring in an old Beatles T-shirt, waiting to shake her hand.
"You know," she said, admiring his shirt, "that's one of my all time favorite songs, 'Let It Be.'"
He smiled as she walked away.
Slowly drifting amongst piped-up, sign-carrying moms holding out their star-spangled face-painted daughters, Hillary stopped to ask a young female ice cream scooper for a cup of "Espresso Oreo" and what high school she attended.
It was hardly more than a photo opportunity, but it seemed as though it could be one of the last sunny days for the Clinton campaign.
Clinton let the cameras click as she enjoyed an afternoon that she hopes will end with a win in the primary here. Her campaign is holding a double-digit lead in the West Virginia polls over Barack Obama, but he has now passed her in the race for superdelegates.
Even longtime Clinton family supporter and former strategist James Carville said today that he expects Obama to win the Democratic nomination. "I'm for Senator Clinton, but I think the great likelihood is that Obama will be the nominee," Carville told students at Furman University last night, according to The State, a South Carolina newspaper. "As soon as I determine when that is, I'll send him a check."
And while more and more high profile politicians are calling for Clinton to bow out, a USA Today/Gallup poll says that 55 percent of Americans say she should stay in the race, while the same amount said Senator Obama should pick her as his running mate if he wins the Democratic nomination.
Nevertheless, Clinton campaign chief Terry McAuliffe says Clinton is still fighting for the nomination "100 percent" until June 3rd.
But for Clinton, this afternoon was a time to relax with the presumed notion that at least one more primary victory would rise from tonight's vote in West Virginia.
It was a time to stop and smell the...you know. It was a flower market.