Barack Obama And Hillary Clinton's Battle May Finally Wind Down After South Dakota, Montana Primaries

More than five months after Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama began their unexpectedly epic grudge match for the Democratic presidential nomination in Iowa, the final two primaries are slated to take place in South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday (June 3). But, as has been the case ever since Obama shocked Clinton in January — and as comments from both Bill Clinton and a member of Hillary's staff have led many to believe the end of her campaign may be very near — don't expect the fight to end when the polls close.

The final two elections come after a weekend of furious activity that included answering the biggest outstanding question of the primary season — what to do with the disallowed delegates from Michigan and Florida — and the tallying of another big win for Clinton, in Puerto Rico, in an effort that many pundits continue to feel is a fruitless one.

On Saturday, the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee voted to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations — whose votes were disallowed because the states violated party rules and moved up their primaries. The committee voted to reinstate all of the two states' delegates to the national convention in Denver in August, though each state was penalized by being given only a half vote.

The decision gave Clinton 105 pledged delegates from Florida and 69 from Michigan, for a total of 87 votes, while Obama got 67 from Florida and 59 from Michigan, for a total of 63 votes. Even with the additional delegates, Obama leads Clinton by the equivalent of 178 delegates, according to CNN. If each disputed delegate had received a full vote, Obama would still have led Clinton.

Clinton, who has long vowed to stay in the race until every state has voted, breezed into the wind-down of the bare-knuckle primary season with an impressive win in Puerto Rico on Sunday. She beat Obama by a margin of nearly 2-to-1, 68 percent to 32 percent, taking the lion's share of the U.S. territory's 55 delegates. (Citizens of Puerto Rico cannot vote in the general election, which may explain why turnout was low.) Though the margin on the island was wide, and Clinton won in nearly every major demographic group — including men and women, as well as her traditional older voting base and Obama's typically reliable younger voting bloc — it did little to close the gap with Obama.

With Clinton polling well ahead of him in the week leading up to the Puerto Rico primary, Obama quickly conceded the win to his rival, but treated the victory as another stop toward his presumed coronation as the Democratic candidate. Campaigning in South Dakota on Sunday, he congratulated Clinton and said she was going to be a "great asset when we go into November to make sure that we defeat the Republicans," according to CNN.

Amid the flurry of additional headlines on Monday was a surprising comment from former President Bill Clinton, who told an audience in South Dakota that his time stumping for his wife might be winding down. "This may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind," he said, according to CNN, seemingly conceding that his wife's historic bid for the presidency was coming to an end. In a sign that Hillary Clinton may be gearing up for a major announcement, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Monday that she is planning to give her post-primary speech at Baruch College in her home state of New York Tuesday night, rather than in either South Dakota or Montana. One of her top aides said, "New York is where she started, New York is where she ends," according to the paper.

Also Monday, a group composed of several of the 17 uncommitted Senate superdelegates held a closed-door meeting to discuss their plans for when the polls close on Tuesday, with most of them planning to back Obama, sources told the CNN.

The delegate total for Tuesday's final two primaries is only 31, but Democrats hope that the official end of the primary season will allow them to finally reach a consensus on who will take on presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain in November. Though Obama is not expected to come out of Tuesday's primaries with enough pledged delegates to reach the new magic number needed to clinch the nomination — now 2,118 following the addition of the Michigan and Florida votes — speculation is that enough superdelegates will flock his way later this week to make him the presumptive nominee.

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Clintons' earnings exceed $100m

Since 2000, the former first couple took in nearly $110m, with more than $20m made in 2007, and gave more than $10m to charity in the same period. Almost half of the income was made from the former president's speeches.

Sen Clinton had been under pressure to release her returns since rival Barack Obama disclosed his for 2000-2006. Both Sen Obama and John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, have said they will reveal their 2007 returns later this month.

"The Clintons have now made public 30 years of tax returns, a record matched by few people in public service," said Jay Carson, a Clinton campaign spokesman. The former first couple last disclosed their earnings in 2000. "None of Hillary Clinton's presidential opponents have revealed anything close to this amount of personal financial information."

The Clintons paid around $34m in taxes between 2000 and 2007, their returns show. The last time the former first couple publicised their finances was in 2000 - the year they left the White House. In that year they reported a gross income of $416,000.

Since leaving office, though, Bill Clinton has given speeches around the world, as well as becoming involved in numerous business ventures. He has also made $30m from his two books, My Life and Giving.

For her part, Mrs Clinton made more than $10m from her book Living History. She donated all the proceeds from another work, It Takes a Village, to charity. Although the New York senator revealed highlights of tax returns from 2007, she requested an extension for their full disclosure, citing the need for more information on a blind trust dissolved last year.

As For Obama & McCain

Last week Mr Obama published seven years of tax returns on his website. The data showed he earned nearly $1 million in 2006, nearly half of it coming from the publication of his second book, The Audacity of Hope.

In previous financial disclosures, Sen McCain has listed his primary sources of income as his Senate salary of $170,000 and his Naval pension of around $56,000.

Although Mr McCain's wife is heiress to a stake in Hensley & Co, one of the largest beer distributorships in the US - reportedly worth more than $100 million - a prenuptial agreement means most of her assets are kept in her name.

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