There's no rush to decide the Democratic presidential nomination, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says. The Nevada Democrat, a superdelegate and party leader, also notes that he's not siding with either Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama just yet.
"I'm going to be very patient," Reid tells Steve Inskeep in an interview to discuss his new memoir, The Good Fight. "The primaries are not over with yet. I think that shortly after the primaries are ended, there will be people like me making a decision."
Should he and other superdelegates side with the majority of the other delegates who have pledged to candidates?
"I think superdelegates have the opportunity, the ability and the right to vote for whoever they want, and I think that's what they should do," Reid says.
He says former President Bill Clinton recently called to try to persuade him to back Hillary Clinton. But Reid says people shouldn't read too much into that.
"Well, everybody should understand Barack Obama's called me a few times, too," he says with a chuckle.
Obama has 1,730 delegates, compared with 1,597 for Clinton; 2,025 are needed for the nomination. About 290 superdelegates haven't yet publicly committed to a candidate.
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