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Hillary Clinton, shown here speaking to supporters at a rally in Sunrise, Fla. Wednesday, is still looking to have Florida's disputed delegates reinstated. (AP Photo)

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is taking a hard-line approach to the seating of the disputed Democratic convention delegates from Michigan and Florida, even as Barack Obama softens his stance on the matter and says he’s ready to compromise.

This sets up a potentially contentious and critical meeting May 31, when a rules panel of the Democratic National Committee is scheduled to determine whether to lift all or part of the party sanctions on those two states. If Clinton gets her way, the campaign insists the outcome will change the so-called “magic number” — the number of delegates needed to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination.

And a higher delegate threshold would put the nomination out of Obama’s immediate reach.

“There’s an unwritten assumption that 2,026 is the number to get the nomination. That could not at this point be further from the truth,” Clinton strategist Harold Ickes told reporters on a conference call Thursday. “Until they are fully resolved, there is no fixed number for the nomination.”

If Obama is willing to give an inch on the Florida-Michigan issue, then Clinton is after the whole nine yards.

The New York senator still wants both delegations seated in full, even though that seems unlikely. Clinton won both contests, but the states were stripped of their delegates as punishment for holding early primaries. Neither candidate campaigned in the states and Obama was not even on the ballot in Michigan. Many Democrats nevertheless voted for Obama by voting “uncommitted.”

Drawing the line, Ickes said Thursday that Obama should not have any delegates directly allocated from the Michigan primary.

“All delegates should be seated and all delegates should have a full vote each. With respect to Michigan, it is our view that the uncommitted delegates, of which there are 55, should be seated as uncommitted delegates,” he said.

Asked whether that was a change in position, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson and Ickes said most uncommitted delegates likely would vote for Obama anyway.

“It is, however, presumptuous to assume that each and every one of those delegates is an Obama supporter,” Ickes said. “It may well be for Senator Obama, but it should not be for the campaigns or the Rules and Bylaws Committee to force delegates to be in a category or supporting a candidate, including uncommitted.”

That statement came after Obama told voters at a town hall meeting Wednesday in Florida that “my hope is in a couple weeks time, that we’ve won some more elections, we’ve won some more delegates, we’ve gotten the Florida delegation seated so that they’re gonna be at the convention. And then we’re gonna have a convention in August and I’m gonna accept that nomination.”

Ickes said “Obama seems to have crossed the Rubicon, and is in favor of some resolution of Michigan and Florida.”

With those states, a 2,210 delegates would be the new threshold for the nomination, Ickes noted.

If that’s the case, then Obama would no longer be within 61 delegates of locking down the nomination. The latest Associated Press delegates tallies show Obama at 1,965 and Clinton considerably behind at 1,780.

But Obama is looking for a compromise that is a gesture to Clinton and both states — not one that would alter the balance of the race.

Plans before the DNC committee could be generous to Obama. The Michigan Democratic Party has proposed giving 69 of its 128 delegates to Clinton and 59 to Obama, a net gain of 10 delegates for Clinton.

A proposal from Florida would halve its 185 delegates. From that, Clinton would get 52.5 and Obama 33.5, a 19-delegate boost for Clinton.

And even if all the two states’ 313 pledged delegates were allocated, with no votes for Obama from Michigan, Clinton would get 178 to Obama’s 67, closing the gap by 111 votes, according to The Associated Press.

That means Clinton’s best-case scenario still wouldn’t catch her up, since she’s trailing, as of Thursday, by 185 total delegates.

Wolfson acknowledged that even if the Clinton campaign gets everything it wants from the committee, her path to the nomination still relies on convincing uncommitted superdelegates that she’s the stronger general election candidate.

Clinton has recently invoked the 2000 presidential election dispute in Florida, which ended in George W. Bush taking the White House, in her effort to make the case to seat the two states’ delegations.

“We know it was wrong to penalize voters for the decisions of state officials back in the 2000 presidential election,” she said Wednesday in Florida. “It would be wrong to do so for decisions made in our nominating process.”

The May 31 meeting arguably carries more weight than any of the three remaining primary contests on the calendar. Puerto Rico, which votes June 1, offers 55 pledged delegates. Montana offers 16 and South Dakota offers 15 when they vote two days later.

Florida State Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller sued his national party Thursday over the decision to strip Florida of its presidential delegates. The suit argues that the Democratic National Committee didn’t treat Florida fairly when it punished the state for holding a primary before Feb. 5. It also maintains that the Republican-led Legislature set the early date, and the state’s Democrats shouldn’t be blamed.

FOX News’ Major Garrett, Aaron Bruns and Bonney Kapp and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 6:22 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, Florida, Hillary Clinton, Michigan, Top Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.