Clinton to end her presidential campaign

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to end her presidential campaign while leaving her options open to retain her delegates and promote her issue agenda, a campaign official said.

The former first lady told House Democrats during a private conference call Wednesday that she will express support for Barack Obama's candidacy and congratulate him for gathering the necessary delegates to be the party's nominee.

"Senator Clinton will be hosting an event in Washington, D.C., to thank her supporters and express her support for Senator Obama and party unity. This event will be held on Saturday to accommodate more of Senator Clinton's supporters who want to attend," her communications director Howard Wolfson said.

Also in the speech, Clinton will urge once-warring Democrats to focus on the general election and defeating Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

The announcement brought to a close a five-month nominating battle pitting the first serious female candidate against the most viable black contender ever.

Obama on Tuesday night secured the 2,118 delegates to claim the Democratic nomination, but Clinton stopped short of acknowledging that milestone, saying she would.

An adviser said Clinton and her lieutenants had discussed various ways a presidential candidacy can end, including suspending the campaign to retain control of her convention delegates and sustain her visibility in an effort to promote her signature issue of health care.

The other options include freeing her delegates to back Obama and ending her candidacy unconditionally. The official stressed that neither Clinton nor her inner circle had decided specifically what course to take other than to recognize that the active state of her bid to become the nation's first female president had ended.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama turned in earnest to the general election and the hunt for a running mate Wednesday.

Obama himself moved to link himself more closely with a young Democratic hero of a half-century ago, picking President Kennedy's daughter Caroline to help him choose a vice president.

His campaign said the vetting of potential running mates was to be managed by a three-person team of Caroline Kennedy, former deputy attorney general Eric Holder and longtime Washington insider Jim Johnson.

Clinton has told lawmakers privately that she would be interested in the vice presidential nomination. Obama was noncommittal after his chat with her behind the scenes at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

"We're going to be having a conversation in coming weeks, and I'm very confident how unified the Democratic Party's going to be to win in November," he said.

Meanwhile, the dam holding back endorsements broke from coast to coast on the day after the primary elections concluded.

Seven senators who had stayed out of the matter said they were giving Obama their commitment and would work toward uniting Democrats for the election, now five months away.

In Nashville, Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen was joined by two other superdelegates to say they hoped to bring the party behind Obama even though Clinton won their state. Former Vice President Walter Mondale, who had been a Clinton supporter, announced he was backing Obama.

It hardly mattered in terms of delegate math -- after months of struggle, Obama had more than enough to prevail at the party convention in Denver in August. But Obama's new backers were also sending a message to Clinton that her race was over.

The Obama camp's disclosure about the three-person veep vetting team was an effort to change the subject from the long, divisive primary campaign toward the general election.

Kennedy's name came as a surprise, although she endorsed Obama at a critical time last winter, saying he could be an inspirational leader like her father. She also campaigned for Obama.

Holder is a former federal prosecutor and District of Columbia Superior Court judge who held the No. 2 job at the Justice Department under President Clinton.

Johnson is widely known among Democrats for having helped previous candidates, including John Kerry four years ago, sift through vice presidential possibilities. He is a former chief executive officer for the mortgage lender Fannie Mae.