Rep. Barney Frank
said the trailing Democratic presidential candidate
should drop out of the race by no later than June 3 -- the
date of the two last Democratic primaries -- even if
it is the candidate he supports, Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton.
''Probably
sooner,'' the Massachusetts congressman added in an
interview Tuesday with the Associated Press. He
suggested that the trailing candidate should drop out
once it became clear that candidate had no remaining
practical chance of winning the nomination.
South Dakota and
Montana vote on that day. Sen. Barack Obama currently
leads Clinton in both pledged delegates and in the popular
vote. But neither can mathematically win a majority by
that date, and the final outcome will depend on
superdelegates.
As a member of
Congress, Frank is one of the nearly 800 elected officials
and party leaders who are superdelegates to the Democratic
National Convention.
Obama lately has
been battling criticism over his remarks that some
voters in small towns in Pennsylvania and in other parts of
rural America have grown bitter because of hard
economic times and hollow promises by politicians and
therefore ''cling to guns and religion.'' Both
Clinton and Sen. John McCain, the certain Republican
nominee, have painted the Illinois senator as an
elitist out of touch with small-town America.
Frank, chairman
of the House Financial Services Committee, said he
thought that Obama had ''a very legitimate point to make,''
but expressed it poorly.
"Bitter is
not a good word to use," Frank said, adding that Obama
should have stuck with an economic argument rather
than talking about guns and religion. "Obama should have
said, 'Yes, people are angry, and that's why they
should oppose trade deals that drive jobs abroad and
other economic plans that disadvantage U.S. workers.'"
(AP)
