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Hillary Clinton campaigns at Mishawaka High School in Indiana Friday. She rejected mounting pressure to end her campaign. (AP Photo)

Hillary Clinton, under mounting pressure to bow out of the presidential race and avoid a floor fight at the Democratic National Convention in August, is standing firm in her determination to fight Barack Obama to the finish.

Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, a former candidate himself, said Clinton has virtually no chance of winning, and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said Friday the New York senator should just end her campaign.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants the party’s uncommitted superdelegates to support the candidate who has the most votes, which to this point is Obama. And Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean on Friday urged all those superdelegates to announce whom they will support by July 1.

But Clinton says she will not abide by anyone’s timetable.

“There are some people who are saying, ‘You know, we really ought to end this primary; we just ought to shut it down’,” she said Friday in South Bend, Ind. “Well, one thing you know about me, when I tell you I’ll fight for you, I’ll get up every day and that’s exactly what I will do.”

Clinton told FOX News in an interview Wednesday that the race is a “long way from being over,” and that she’ll take it to the convention if she has to.

The Clinton campaign sent a fund-raising letter Friday that argued: “Every time our campaign demonstrates its strength and resilience, people start to suggest we should end our pursuit of the Democratic nomination … and they know we are in a position to win.”

The promise of short-term reward is not lost on Clinton. Polls show her way ahead in Pennsylvania, which holds its primary April 22 and offers an attractive 158 pledged delegates. That is roughly how many delegates separate the candidates.

“I think there’s very little chance that Hillary Clinton will drop out at all,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “I think this will go all the way through to the end of the primaries. And look, she’s poised for a very substantial victory in Pennsylvania.”

But Democratic primaries are not winner-take-all. With a proportional allotment, Clinton has little chance of gaining much ground on Obama in Pennsylvania, even if she wins handily.

And party leaders are concerned that every day the Democratic race lasts gives another opening to presumptive GOP nominee John McCain.

On the day that McCain launched his first general election ad of the campaign, Obama supporter Leahy called on Clinton to withdraw, citing Obama’s endorsement by Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey as the latest sign of her undoing.

“There is no way that Sen. Clinton is going to win enough delegates to get the nomination,” Leahy told Vermont Public Radio in an earlier interview. “She ought to withdraw and she ought to be backing Senator Obama. Now, obviously that’s a decision that only she can make. Frankly, I feel that she would have a tremendous career in the Senate.”

Dodd, who also has endorsed Obama, told National Journal radio that party leaders need to “reach a conclusion” over the next several weeks.

“I think it’s very difficult to imagine how anyone can believe that Barack Obama can’t be the nominee of the party. I think that’s a foregone conclusion,” he said. “I think you have to make a decision, and hopefully the candidates will respect it and people will rally behind a nominee that, I think, emerges from these contests over the next month.”

The upper-level pressure is coming from Pelosi and Dean. They are both uncommitted and are not outright calling on Clinton to leave the race, but they are stonewalling part of her victory strategy.

Clinton and her supporters are banking on uncommitted superdelegates to put her over the edge, and they are looking to the convention as a final opportunity to settle the dispute over the Michigan and Florida delegations. Clinton won the primaries in both states, but they were disqualified for holding their primaries early, and none of the candidates campaigned in either of the states.

Dean’s determination to compel the superdelegates to announce their picks on July 1 could result in a candidate being chosen before the Florida and Michigan controversies are resolved.

Appearing on CBS’ “Early Show” on Friday, Dean said: “Well, I think the superdelegates have already been weighing in. I think there’s 800 of them and 450 of them have already said who they’re for. … I’d like the other 350 to say who they’re on between now and the first of July so we don’t have to take this into the convention.”

In a separate interview with The Associated Press, Dean warned against “demoralizing” Democrats with a drawn-out fistfight between Clinton and Obama.

Pelosi, meanwhile, has urged superdelegates to follow the choice of the pledged delegates, more of whom favor Obama. She rejected an overture by wealthy Clinton donors Wednesday that she recant that position.

With no end to the intra-party squabbling in sight, Obama joked Friday that this primary season is “like a good movie that lasted about a half an hour too long.”

“I think there are some people who felt like ‘God, when will this be over?’” he told a Pittsburgh, Pa., crowd. He later qualified, adding: “It’s been hard and tough because both Clinton and I understand what is at stake, how important this race is, how important the next presidency will be to the American people and to families right here in Pennsylvania.”

Though trailing in Pennsylvania, Obama’s shown a resilience to the recent controversy over his former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.

According to a Gallup Poll released Friday, Obama leads nationally with 50 percent to the New York senator’s 42 percent, his biggest lead in that survey since the Wright controversy broke.

In response to Leahy’s calls for the race to end, Clinton supporter Sen. Chuck Schumer in a conference call Friday urged supporters to wait and see, citing the upcoming Pennsylvania primary.

Former Vice President Al Gore said Thursday that he expects the Democratic nomination fight will work itself out before the party’s convention.

“What have we got, five months left?” he told The Associated Press in a brief interview after a speech at Middle Tennessee State University.

“I think it’s going to resolve itself. But we’ll see.”

Gore didn’t elaborate.

FOX News’ Aaron Bruns and Bonney Kapp and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 5:29 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Pennsylvania, Top Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.