Reid, Pelosi Call for Quick End to Democratic Campaign

By Paul Kane
Washington Post

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi both have predicted a swift end to the Democratic presidential campaign once South Dakotans and Montanans cast the last ballots of the marathon primary season on Tuesday, signaling there is little support among the party's institutional leaders for a drawn-out fight by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to secure support from unpledged super-delegates.

Reid and Pelosi, speaking yesterday and today in separate events during political travels in San Francisco, suggested the race would likely end next week -- a conclusion that almost certainly means Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) would secure the nomination, given his narrow but comfortable lead right now in both pledged delegates and super-delegates.

In an interview this morning with KGO Radio, while promoting his new book, Reid said he spoke this morning about the campaign with Pelosi and to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean last night. "We agree there won't be a fight at the convention," he told radio listeners, appearing to suggest that Obama would have sufficient delegates to presume victory next week.

Later, at the Commonwealth Club, Reid predicted definitively that the race would conclude shortly after the South Dakota and Montana contests, without specifying who the nominee would be. "By this time next week, it'll be all over, give or take a day," Reid said.

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