Hillary Clinton's determined White House bid is at last truly over
The glory and glitz are gone, but still she lingers with supporters for a few more handshakes.
NEW YORK — There were no chandeliers or carved marble, no painted ceilings or parquet ballroom floors for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday night.
The New York senator and former first lady addressed her supporters, for perhaps the last time, under exposed air ducts and water pipes in a subterranean cinder block gymnasium.
She struck the determined posture she has made a hallmark of her marathon presidential bid.
But Clinton's historic quest to become America's first female president -- once seemingly a campaign of destiny -- is drawing to a close a bit less elegantly.
On her final campaign swing through South Dakota on Monday, Clinton found herself posing for photos with a teacher in Rapid City who confided afterward that she wasn't sure she would vote for her.
Across the state, before twice losing her voice, she mistakenly thanked the ex-mayor of Yankton who had been recalled by angry voters six months earlier.
At a fairground in Sioux Falls, she rushed past thousands of disappointed supporters locked out of her last rally just minutes after her husband had assured them, "We have love happening here."
And Tuesday night, Clinton came to the gym at Manhattan's Baruch College (home to the "Mighty, Mighty Bearcats"), a world away from the Oval Office in Washington that she had fought so hard to occupy.
By then, the race for the Democratic presidential nomination had been effectively over for hours. In Washington, a steady stream of lawmakers on Capitol Hill announced their plans to back Sen. Barack Obama, giving him the crucial superdelegate votes he needed.
Sen. John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, told supporters in Kenner, La., that Obama would be his challenger in November -- and he tipped his hat to Clinton, to whom he said he owed "a debt for inspiring millions of women to believe there is no opportunity in this great country beyond their reach."
Just before Clinton took the stage, one of her biggest backers -- former special counsel to former President Clinton, Lanny J. Davis -- told reporters he was starting an online petition to promote Hillary Clinton for vice president.
But underground in New York, the candidate and her supporters were not ready to go. Hundreds chanted their support and waved their Hillary placards.
