US:Hillary Clinton yesterday ran into resistance from fellow Democrats for her plan to take the fight for the nomination to the party convention amid growing calls to wrap up the contest by late June.
Barack Obama's campaign retreated from demands that Mrs Clinton immediately give up her race for the White House.
But there were signs that Democrats are coalescing around the idea of a late June or early July deadline for deciding on a presidential candidate.
Mrs Clinton said she had no intention of quitting despite Mr Obama's formidable lead in delegates and in the popular vote, and despite calls from two of his most prominent supporters to get out.
"I know there are some people who want to shut this down and I think they are wrong," she told the Washington Post. "I have no intention of stopping until we finish what we started and until we see what happens in the next 10 contests."
Mrs Clinton went further, calling for a resolution to the dispute between the Democratic national committee and Florida and Michigan over their unsanctioned primaries - even if it went to the credentials committee of the convention.
For Democrats that conjures up a nightmare of a protracted nomination battle over the summer that would give John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, a clear field to make his case to the American people.
Mrs Clinton's stand risked a confrontation with Democratic leaders who have been rallying around a call from Howard Dean, the national committee chairman, for the party's 800 superdelegates, whose votes could ultimately determine the nominee, to come to a decision by July 1st.
Yesterday, Tennessee's Democratic governor, Phil Bredesen, who has remained neutral in the race, said that a drawn-out campaign could hurt the party's chances in the November presidential election. Mr Bredesen has called for a mini-primary of superdelegates to decide the contest.
"At the end of August, come Labour Day, we're going to have a nominee, but if it's the nominee of a divided party and an emotionally exhausted party, there's just not time to conduct the kind of campaign we need to have," he told Fox television.
John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee and one of Mr Obama's most prominent supporters, gave his support to the idea.
Some Democratic elders went further, with the former governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, calling for a joint Obama-Clinton ticket. "The 2008 primary may be the story of a painfully botched grand opportunity to return our nation to the upward path," he wrote in the Boston Globeon Saturday.
Mr Kerry also backed away from demands from two fellow Obama supporters, senators Chris Dodd and Patrick Leahy, that Mrs Clinton quit the race.
"Hillary Clinton has all the right in the world to continue to fight," he told ABC television.
Mr Obama had earlier told a press conference in Pennsylvania on Saturday that Mrs Clinton had the right to remain in the race. "My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants," he said. "She is a fierce and formidable opponent, and she obviously believes she would make the best nominee and the best president." The retreat from the Obama camp came amid signs of a backlash against the pronouncements from Mr Dodd and Mr Leahy, especially among women, who are Mrs Clinton's core constituency. On Saturday, Bill Clinton sent out an email asking: "With the race this close, it sure doesn't make sense to me that she'd leave now. Does it make sense to you?"