Pelosi remains neutral for now

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has said that pledged delegates should decide the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, will remain neutral in the race for now even though Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) has clinched a majority of such delegates.

With three contests to go in the party’s primary, the Illinois senator on Tuesday grabbed an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates with 1,649.5 out of 3,253, according to The Associated Press.

{mosads}“If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the elections,” Pelosi said in March, “it would be harmful to the Democratic Party.”

However, the House Speaker will remain neutral until the party has a nominee, Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly told The Hill. He added that Pelosi wishes to avoid a conflict of interest. The Speaker chairs the Democratic nominating convention in Denver.

That stance does not preclude her from encouraging other superdelegates to endorse, Daly said, as Pelosi believes the party should reach a consensus by June 3, the day of the last Democratic primaries.

Pelosi has made it clear that delegates, and not other measures such as the popular vote, should decide the outcome of the primaries.

“It’s a delegate race,” Pelosi said in March. “The way the system works is that the delegates choose the nominee.”