Clinton Campaign Denies Pursuing Obama's Pledged Delegates

This morning we noted a Politico story suggesting that the Clinton campaign would go after Obama's "pledged" delegates – that is, the delegates who have ostensibly been allotted to a candidate based on primary or caucus results. As it turns out, these "pledged" delegates aren't actually pledged at all, and they can technically switch sides.

The Obama campaign has been pushing the story as evidence that the Clinton campaign will do anything to win. In a conference call with members of the press corps, Obama supporter and former DNC chairman David Wilhelm called the strategy "beyond troubling."

"I would just add that sometimes nominations are not worth having, and one of those times would be when the nomination comes at the cost of ripping the party apart," he added. Obama campaign head David Plouffe, meanwhile, said this: "Every day there seems to be a new tactic they're developing that might allow them to pull a rabbit out of hat and subvert the will of the voters."

The Clinton later campaign released a statement contesting the story. As CBS News Chief Political Consultant Marc Ambinder reported on his Atlantic blog, Clinton spokesman Phil Singer sent an email stating, "We have not, are not and will not pursue the pledged delegates of Barack Obama."

The statement also included this sentence: "It's now time for the Obama campaign to be clear about their intentions."

The Politico piece, meanwhile, includes this: "Clinton spokesman Phil Singer told me Monday he assumes the Obama campaign is going after delegates pledged to Clinton, though a senior Obama aide told me he knew of no such strategy."

In a noon conference call, the Clinton campaign didn't address the issue specifically, instead referring reporters to Singer's statement.