Opinion: Your chance to vote: Should Hillary Clinton quit now or stay the course?

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A growing number of people, mostly her opponents, are publicly calling for Sen. Hillary Clinton to withdraw from the Democratic presidential contest and cede victory to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. He leads in both total delegates and the popular votes of past primaries but has yet to gain the number required to win nomination.

This would, of course, essentially render meaningless the votes of Democrats in a bundle of upcoming primary states including Indiana, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Clinton has vowed to continue her struggle, which is her right but could produce a long-term damaging stalemate with accumulating bitterness among Obama supporters, even if she did somehow ultimately win. She’s recently talked about taking the fight over disallowed primaries and their delegates in Florida and Michigan to a credentials committee fight in Denver at the national convention.

This strategy effectively consumes valuable general election preparation time and financial resources from whichever Democrat ultimately wins, as the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, is already campaigning to unify his party, raise money (he’s way behind) and set the scope of his personal campaign narrative.

Or put it this way: If the New York Giants had given up well before the....

end of regulation time in this year’s Super Bowl, the overwhelmingly-favored New England Patriots would have gone undefeated. Instead, they’re playing off-season golf these days and muttering unprintable things to themselves.

What’s your opinion? Should Clinton give up now?

-- Andrew Malcolm