Will Hillary Clinton Drop Out Of The Democratic Presidential Nomination Race By June 15?

Lawrence O’Donnell, writing in The Huffington Post, says he has talked with a “senior” Clinton campaign official who told him Senator Hillary Clinton will quit the Presidential race by June 15. Fact or not?

Today Clinton vowed to stay in the race “until there is a nominee.”

O’Donnell writes:

A senior campaign official and Clinton confidante has told me that there will be a Democratic nominee by June 15. He could not bring himself to say the words “Hillary will drop out by June 15,” but that is clearly what he meant. I kept saying, “So, Hillary will drop out by June 15,” and he kept saying, “We will have a nominee by June 15.” He stressed what a reasonable person Hillary is.

Everything about our conversation implied that he had already had this reality-based discussion with Hillary.

O’Donnell says, in essence, that the official told him Clinton will continue to campaign, get as many delegates and votes as she can, and then make her pitch to superdelegates. But she knows the math.

Yes, Clinton spokespersons publicly seem to be lost on gravity-free planet Clinton, but privately they know the end is near.

This is the kind of report that will likely be denied by top campaign officials (if it was meant to be official it would be by a named spokesman). But when people write something with such specificity, it is almost certainly sourced.

But it does contradict other reports — including our post here.

When will we know if it’s fact or not?

By June 15th. It’s truly impossible hard to believe Clinton would risk her long-range political future by battling tooth and nail all the way to the convention — particularly if a parade if Superdelegates starts marching towards Obama and party elites are itching to start the campaign against GOP presumptive nominee Senator John McCain.