Party officials aren't backing Clinton strategy

WASHINGTON — Unable to revive her presidential campaign with voters, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton envisions a road to the nomination built on disputes over Democratic Party rules and fights over delegate selections. But even that route looked unattainable Wednesday, with some key party officials warning they would not cooperate with the strategy.

The party leaders' comments came as they digested Tuesday night's election results from Indiana and North Carolina, results that extended Sen. Barack Obama's lead over Clinton in the popular vote and pledged delegates and led some to conclude that she can't catch up.

Tuesday's results brought more than chatter. Former Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota, the party's 1972 nominee, said he was shifting his support from Clinton to Obama, and said it is time for Democrats to unite to defeat Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, in November.

"I do think the mathematics are all with Senator Obama," he said on CNN.

Party leaders suggested that setbacks for Clinton's new strategy could come as early as May 31, when a Democratic National Committee (DNC) panel considers the dispute over delegations from Florida and Michigan. Under rules adopted before the campaign began, the two states were stripped of delegates as punishment for holding their primaries earlier than rules allowed.

Clinton won the states easily (Obama wasn't on the ballot in Michigan) and wants them included, a move that would help her cut into Obama's lead and extend the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination. Obama's campaign views the strategy as a last-ditch effort to move the goal line.

Several party officials — including a Clinton supporter who sits on the panel dealing with the issue — said Wednesday that going along with her strategy would be unfair.

"I don't let my political feelings interfere with what I believe to be right and just under the rules," said Clinton supporter Garry Shay, a Californian who sits on the rules committee and plans to object to the Clinton proposal for counting Florida and Michigan.

Other party officials said Wednesday they feared the political damage if Clinton used the party apparatus to take the nomination from Obama, who has energized black voters and many other Democrats.

"I just think it's a really dangerous thing for the Democratic Party to now go back and say, 'Well [Florida and Michigan] broke the rules, but on the other hand we need them,' " said R. Keith Roark, the Idaho state party chairman and an uncommitted superdelegate.

The dispute has lingered ever since the two states, which accounted for 366 delegates, flouted DNC rules and moved up their primaries to January.

Clinton long has supported reversing the penalty, but each campaign has agreed for most of the year that the winner would be the first to secure 2,025 delegates, a majority when Michigan and Florida are excluded. As of Wednesday, Obama had 1,846 delegates to 1,695 for Clinton, according to The Associated Press.

This week, Clinton began focusing on a different number, 2,209 delegates, with Florida and Michigan included.

Clinton and her aides said Wednesday they intend to push at the May 31 meeting and potentially beyond.

Harold Ickes, a Clinton strategist who also sits on the rules committee, said seating Florida and Michigan was part of a broader strategy to bring Clinton within 100 delegates of Obama. She then would press superdelegates that they should give her the nomination because she could pose a stiffer challenge to likely GOP nominee Sen. John McCain.

The rules committee has wide latitude. It could uphold the rule, seat the entire delegations, split them in half or seat all superdelegates but only some elected delegates.

Any decision reached May 31 can be appealed to a larger committee in late June.

Material from The Washington Post is included in this report.