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WASHINGTON — Despite Hillary Clinton’s “I’m more electable” strategy to claw her way to the Democratic Party presidential nomination, Michigan and Florida can’t save her campaign. Interviews with those considering how to handle the two states’ banished convention delegates found little interest in the former first lady’s best-case scenario. Her position, part of a formidable comeback challenge, is that all the delegates be seated in accordance with their disputed primaries.

And even if they were, Hillary Rodham Clinton still could not catch up with Barack Obama’s growing lead in delegates.

The Democratic Party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, a 30-member panel charged with interpreting and enforcing party rules, is scheduled to meet May 31 to consider how to handle Michigan and Florida’s 366 delegates.

Last year, the panel imposed the harshest punishment it could render against the two states after they scheduled primaries in January, even though they were instructed not to vote until Feb. 5 or later. The party wanted to preserve the historic importance of the New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucuses.

Michigan and Florida lost all their delegates to the national convention, and all the Democratic candidates agreed not to campaign in the two states, stripping them of all the influence they were trying to build by voting early.

But now there is agreement on all sides that at least some of the delegates should be restored in a gesture of party unity and respect to voters in two general election battlegrounds.

Clinton has been arguing for full reinstatement, which would boost her standing. She won both states, even though they didn’t count toward the nomination and neither candidate campaigned in them. Obama even had his name pulled from Michigan’s ballot.

The Associated Press interviewed a third of the panel members and several other Democrats involved in the negotiations and found widespread agreement that the states must be punished for stepping out of line. If not, the members say, other states will do the same thing in four years, at the next election cycle.

“We certainly want to be fair to both candidates, and we want to be sure that we are fair to the 48 states who abided by the rules,” said Democratic National Committee Secretary Alice Germond, a panel member unaligned with either candidate. “We don’t want absolute chaos for 2012.”

“We want to reach out to Michigan and Florida and seat some group of delegates in some manner, at least most of us do. These are two critical states for the general (election) and the voters of those states who were not the people who caused this awful conundrum to occur deserve our attention and deserve to be a part of our process and deserve to be at the convention,” she said.

Just as Democrats across America have been divided over which candidate would make the better nominee, most of the panel members also bring personal preferences and political allegiances to the table.

Many are long-standing party officials with close ties to the Clintons. The former first lady has 13 members publicly supporting her. Eight are openly aligned with Obama. Nine others are officially undeclared.

“We have to have delegates, and they have to be delegations that reflect the opinions of those two states,” said former DNC Chairman Don Fowler, a committee member supporting Clinton. “How we get there is very different because everyone sees these questions of who it helps and who it hurts. I don’t think the formulation has been found that will get around the piece at this point.” But he said a solution is probably possible among the diverse interests.

Because Obama is in the lead for the nomination, his camp heads into the meeting in a position of strength. It is possible the Illinois senator could clinch the nomination by the time the panel meets if he picks up the pace of superdelegate endorsements in the next two weeks.

But Obama has such a lead that he may be able to afford to be generous and give Clinton most of the delegates. That would help put the issue behind them and help him build good will in Michigan and Florida heading into the November election.

Still, some of Obama’s supporters think the fairest solution is to disregard the primary votes and split the delegations evenly between the two candidates.

“It has to be a fair process for both candidates,” said member Yvonne Gates, an Obama supporter from Nevada who said she wasn’t sure what position she would support at the meeting. “My definition is a 50-50 split is something that is fair. It cannot be a situation where you give one candidate more votes than the other. In my opinion that wasn’t an election when they didn’t have a chance to get out and talk to the people of that community.”

It is also possible that any vote that recognizes the Michigan and Florida results would legitimize their elections. Clinton has been arguing that she leads in the popular vote, but that is only when both states are included and it is very slim — fewer than 5,000 votes out of 34 million cast.

Her accounting also does not include some caucus states that favored Obama and where the popular vote was not tallied. The measure of winning the nomination is not the popular vote but the delegate count, and Obama leads 1,898 to 1,718, with 2,026 needed for the nomination. Still, Clinton is trying to use the popular vote argument to win over some delegates.

So far, Obama’s campaign has not been giving direction publicly or privately to panel members. The Clinton campaign’s official position has been full reinstatement, but her advisers acknowledge they are considering an idea before the panel to seat the delegates with half a vote each. Clinton campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that they “certainly might” accept a compromise to seat half the delegates.

If their elections had been held according to party rules, Michigan and Florida would have allocated a total of 313 pledged delegates based on the outcome of the vote. Using the results of the January elections, Clinton would get 178 to Obama’s 67, giving her a 111-vote advantage. As of Thursday, she was behind 180 delegates, so that would not catch her up even under that unlikely scenario.

The plans before the committee will be more generous to Obama. The Michigan Democratic Party has proposed giving 69 of its 128 delegates to Clinton and 59 to Obama, an advantage 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 advantage for Clinton.

“I think it’s a reasonable solution to the problem that was created, and my hope is that we’ll be able to get past this and move on,” said Allan Katz, an Obama supporter who serves on the panel but won’t be able to vote on any Florida solution because he is from the state.

The committee is not bound to select the proposals offered and has authority to reinstate any number of delegates and divide them in any way.

An open question is how to handle the other type of delegates each state lost — the superdelegates who are party leaders not bound by the outcome of the vote and are free to support whatever candidate they personally choose. Michigan has 28 superdelegates, and Florida 25. A total of eight have declared for Obama, seven for Clinton and the rest are undeclared.

Germond said she hopes the meeting will begin the process of unifying the party.

“Probably what we will come up with will not make everybody or anybody completely happy, which will mean that we did a good job,” she said. “It is mighty unfortunate that at this point in our nominating process we are talking about people who did not abide by the process instead of talking about (beating Republican presidential candidate) John McCain.”

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BATH, S.D. — Hillary Rodham Clinton scolded John McCain Thursday for opposing the farm bill, attempting to maintain the sense that she is already competing against the certain Republican presidential nominee even as her chances for winning the Democratic nomination dim.

As she chatted up rural South Dakotans, Clinton largely ignored Democratic rival Barack Obama, who continued to gain ground in delegates needed to clinch the nomination and picked up a sought-after endorsement from former Sen. John Edwards this week.

Clinton noted that President Bush has said he will veto the farm bill, which Congress passed Thursday. McCain also has said he would veto the bill if he were president.

“They’re like two sides of the same coin, and it doesn’t amount to much change, does it?” the New York senator said. “I believe saying no to the farm bill is saying no to rural America.”

Bush and McCain both say the bill, which boosts farm subsidies and includes more money for food stamps, is fiscally irresponsible and too generous to wealthy corporate farmers.

“When Bear Stearns needed assistance, we stepped in with a $30 billion package. But when our farmers need help, all they get from Senator McCain and President Bush is a veto threat,” Clinton said.

Obama applauded the bill’s passage in a statement released by his campaign, saying the measure was “far from perfect,” but “with so much at stake, we cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good.”

The Illinois senator also chided McCain and Bush for “saying no to America’s farmers and ranchers, no to energy independence, no to the environment, and no to millions of hungry people.”

Clinton chose South Dakota for her first campaign appearance since her West Virginia win earlier this week, signaling that she is sticking around until the final primaries on June 3 despite call from some Democrats to close ranks behind Obama. South Dakota and Montana vote that day — the finish line on the primary calendar.

“There are a lot of people who say, ‘Well we should just wrap this up,”‘ Clinton told several hundred South Dakotans while standing on the porch of a fourth-generation family farmhouse in Bath. “Well I’ve never been impatient with democracy.”

Meanwhile, in Kentucky, husband Bill Clinton urged voters to ignore those who say Obama will be the nominee. Kentucky holds its presidential primary on Tuesday.

“Your voice still counts,” the former president said. “They’ve tried to bury her more times than a cat has lives.”

While chatting briefly with reporters as she flew to South Dakota, Clinton stuck to small talk, like describing the deer she occasionally sees outside her Washington home. She refused to comment on Edwards’ endorsement. Both she and Obama had sought his backing.

Later, in Rapid City, she said she had a “great deal of respect” for Edwards.

“He and I have a lot in common … I imagine that Senator Edwards’ endorsement will be of some help to Senator Obama in Kentucky, but I think that what matters are the people who actually vote,” Clinton said before heading to California for a fundraiser.

Clinton said she had not spoken with Edwards but had spoken with his wife, Elizabeth, about the endorsement. She declined to discuss their conversation.

The former first lady has maintained that her West Virginia triumph over Obama bolsters her argument that she would be the stronger nominee to face McCain in key states in the fall.

Left with an increasingly unrealistic mathematical path to the nomination, Clinton has turned to philosophical arguments in an attempt to appeal to the party leaders and elected officials, known as superdelegates, whose support will likely determine the nominee.

Suffering from money woes of more than $20 million in debt and trailing Obama in fundraising power, Clinton met with her finance team and top fundraisers at her Washington home on Wednesday to rally her forces. The message to the group was to remind them that she now has the lead in votes cast thus far throughout the primary season.

Her campaign continues to site a total, however, that includes results from the Florida and Michigan contests that the national Democratic Party has not recognized.

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PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon is fertile ground for Barack Obama, the self-described “change” candidate.

The state that has led the way in everything from bike trails to assisted suicide is also the first to vote entirely by mail. Oregon’s 2 million-plus voters began receiving ballots more than two weeks ago, and 22 percent have returned them, according to the secretary of state’s office.

The ballots will be tallied May 20 in the Democratic primary between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Election officials said turnout appears to be strong in Portland, its populous suburbs, and Eugene, home to the University of Oregon. That bodes well for Obama, who has drawn large crowds in stops in those places and who has outperformed Clinton among urban and young voters throughout the primary.

“There’s very high intensity and interest, a huge volume of calls, more interest than we ever have seen in a primary election,” said Annette Newingham, the county clerk in Lane County, which includes Eugene. Her staff is bracing for turnout that could top 75 percent, she said. That is a figure more often seen in general elections.

Clinton, assisted by her husband, has worked the small-town strategy that was so effective in Pennsylvania. The former president has visited eastern and coastal communities, hoping to counter Obama’s strength in more urban areas. Their daughter, Chelsea, went to Corvallis, home of Oregon State University, to make inroads in the college vote.

The New York senator, who is scheduled to return to the state Friday and Saturday, has released a list of Oregon-specific promises. Many are aimed at rural voters: restoring federal payments to timber counties to make up for lost logging revenues; giving the state authority over siting liquefied natural gas terminals; thinning forests choked with young and dead trees.

Portland and its suburbs seem tailor-made for Obama. Residents are liberal-leaning, upwardly mobile, well educated and strongly opposed to the Iraq war. About 45 percent of the statewide Democratic primary vote in recent elections has come from the Portland area.

Obama will not be able to count on the kind of big turnout from black voters that has boosted his vote totals in some southern states. Blacks account for only 1.7 percent of Oregon’s population, compared with 12.4 percent nationally, according to the Census Bureau.

Also, the rest of the state is not as young or as hip as Portland. Overall, Oregon’s population is slightly older and has a slightly lower income than nationally, 2006 census data shows.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who is backing Clinton, said her visits to the state have helped raise her profile with the state’s voters.

“I think she did a very good job when she was here, and that did have a leveling effect. I still think he’s ahead in the state,” Kulongoski said.

Obama’s campaign has opened 20 offices across Oregon compared with Clinton’s 10 and has drawn on an enthusiastic volunteer corps for weekend canvassing and door-knocking. The campaign claims to have registered 30,000 new Democrats, including former independent and Republican voters.

Obama has done better than Clinton among self-described independents in competitive primaries this year, 54 percent to 40 percent, according to exit polls for The Associated Press.

“Hillary Clinton, she never says uncle, never admits even misspeaking, whereas Obama, when he has had problems, he has tried to address them in a reasonable fashion,” said Mary Deckert, a new home sales agent from Corvallis who switched from unaffiliated to Democrat so she could vote for Obama. “And I know people say, you can’t just go around the world talking to rogue leaders, but I like the idea that we would have someone who would talk to people with whom we don’t necessarily agree.”

Clinton has trounced Obama among voters age 65 and over.

Consider Jean Monsebrowten, a substitute teacher from coastal North Bend, who turned out recently to see Bill Clinton. “This used to be a dirty, rotten, little industrial town that I loved,” Monsebrowten, 73, said of her hometown. “Now, we sell art. It’s been a difficult adjustment — our children all have to leave.”

She said she feels Hillary Clinton is “more of a known commodity” than Obama.

“I am concerned about who Obama will bring into his administration,” Monsebrowten said. “I don’t know who it would be.”

Obama’s most prominent Oregon supporters include Reps. Earl Blumenauer and David Wu, whose districts are part Portland, part suburbs, and Pete DeFazio, whose district includes Eugene. Rep. Darlene Hooley, whose district includes state capital Salem stretching northward to the Portland suburbs, backs Clinton.

Campaign operatives from both sides say female voters are key. Women are about 56.6 percent of registered Democrats in Oregon and tend to vote more reliably than their male counterparts.

Clinton leads Obama among women 52 percent to 45 percent in Democratic primaries where both have campaigned, according to exit polls. But in last month’s AP-Ipsos national poll, the two were virtually even among females — Clinton 44 percent, Obama 42 percent.

Stephen Delmore, an undecided voter from Philomath, a former logging center south of Salem, said he has been watching both Clinton and Obama closely.

“The longer it goes, the more you see what they are truly like under pressure, what kind of people they are,” Delmore said. “She seems more stable, but I also like to be inspired, too.”

Hillary Clinton greets supporters after speaking at her victory rally in Charleston, W. Va., Tuesday night. (AP Photo)

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Hillary Clinton is working overtime to try and pull out a win for the Democratic presidential nomination, campaigning in South Dakota on Thursday and arguing that she’s the best candidate to help rural economies.

Clinton told FOX News on Wednesday she’s taking her underdog fight “a step at a time,” and that includes working to keep her campaign afloat through the end of the primary calendar, June 3.

The New York senator hosted 50 members of her national finance team at her Washington, D.C, home Wednesday and was preparing to meet with more superdelegates in her quest to convince them she’s got the support to carry the party to victory in November.

Barack Obama dealt a heavy blow to Clinton when he unveiled the much-sought endorsement of former presidential candidate John Edwards. But the Clinton campaign argued that didn’t change the fact she won the West Virginia primary by 41 percentage points the night before.

“I want to be crystal clear … Hillary Clinton is going to one place. She is going to Denver as the nominee of the Democratic Party,” campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said Wednesday. “People are going to endorse, they are going to come out, but I think more important than anyone endorsing is what happened last night in West Virginia.”

McAuliffe said earlier that the campaign had pulled in a seven-figure fundraising haul online Tuesday night. That would help, since Clinton faces personal campaign debt of more than $20 million and more than likely will end the primary season significantly in the red.

Though she’s down by nearly 170 delegates with only five contests left, Clinton argued the Democratic race must run through June 3, and possibly beyond.

“Nobody has the numbers yet,” she told FOX News on Wednesday. “So are we in the last two minutes of a game that you don’t think one or the other can win? You go to the buzzer, maybe it goes into overtime. We don’t know. … And until it’s over, it’s not over.”

Clinton was not specific on what she meant by “overtime.”

“We’re going to — let’s take it a step at a time,” she said when asked whether she was talking about taking the race to the convention floor in August.

But Clinton has effectively moved the goalposts, which could explain why she’s pondering a race that lasts beyond June 3. Instead of the 2,026 total delegates Obama is striving for to clinch the nomination, Clinton insists “the number of delegates you have to get is 2,210.”

That includes Florida and Michigan, states that were discounted because they held early primaries in violation of party rules. Clinton won those states and still is holding out hope for a rules panel of the Democratic National Committee to meet May 31 and discuss the ongoing dispute over Michigan’s and Florida’s delegates.

Clinton won big among white and working-class voters in West Virginia, but on Wednesday she backed away from comments she made a week ago, when she talked up her ability to win those voters in an interview with USA Today.

“I regret deeply that, you know, rather than my referencing what was I thought an objective source talking about how this campaign has unfolded, anybody would attribute that to me,” she said, explaining that she was simply quoting a wire service story when she noted the demographic trends.

Clinton has won a larger percentage of white voters than Obama in 27 states, while Obama has won those voters in seven states.

The New York senator continued to talk up her electability come November.

“Democrats have lost in 2000 and 2004 because we didn’t win in rural areas,” she said, highlighting her ability to pick up support outside urban centers. “And I think that is a really strong indicator, because I believe that a Democrat will win in the cities, whoever our Democrat is.”

Meanwhile, Obama continued to rack up endorsements Wednesday despite his double-digit loss the night before. Edwards was the big haul for the Illinois senator.

Both candidates courted the former North Carolina senator after he dropped out of the race in late January. Though Obama lost West Virginia in a landslide, he won North Carolina last week by double digits.

Click here to watch Clinton’s interview with FOX News.

Click here to read the full transcript of the Clinton interview with FOX News.

FOX News’ Major Garrett and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

John Edwards joins Barack Obama at a rally Wednesday in Grand Rapids, Mich., where he endorsed his former Democratic rival. (AP Photo)

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John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama in Michigan Wednesday, ending months of speculation and adding to the growing consensus that Obama is on an irreversible path to become his party’s nominee.

The former Democratic presidential candidate and North Carolina senator said Obama was the candidate best able to build “one America,” as he spoke at length about the ongoing fight to end poverty, improve health care and take down the “wall” separating corporate America from working-class America.

“The reason I am here tonight is the Democratic voters of America have made their choice and so have I,” Edwards told a cheering crowd of more than 12,000 supporters at the Grand Rapids, Mich., arena. “There is one man who knows in his heart that it is time to create one America — not two — and that man is Barack Obama.”

The endorsement helped soften the blow after Obama lost the West Virginia primary to Hillary Clinton the night before by 41 points.

Edwards is not a superdelegate, but Obama and Clinton persistently have sought his endorsement ever since he dropped out of the primary contest at the end of January.

Until now, Edwards had given only scattered clues as to whom he might support. Even when his state of North Carolina voted last Tuesday, he kept his name out of the mix.

But Obama won North Carolina by double digits, and since then he has pocketed dozens more superdelegate endorsements.

Though Clinton scored a landslide victory Tuesday in West Virginia, it did little to change Obama’s daunting delegate lead.

The Clinton campaign tried to brush off the Edwards announcement. Campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe released a statement saying: “We respect John Edwards, but as the voters of West Virginia showed last night, this thing is far from over.”

Edwards showered just as much praise on Clinton Wednesday, saying she believes deeply in her push for universal health care, and that her against-the-odds fight for the nomination demonstrates her “strength and character.”

Obama’s loss Tuesday still highlighted the trouble he has winning over white, working-class voters. Edwards was a champion of working-class Americans during his campaign, and passed his fight to end poverty on to his rivals when he left the race in January.

Obama has since signed on to Edwards’ anti-poverty initiative, which he launched Tuesday with the goal of reducing poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.

Edwards praised him for that move Wednesday evening.

“This election is about taking down these walls that divide us,” Edwards said. “Barack Obama understands that to his core.”

Speaking after Edwards in the packed Van Andel Arena, Obama gave one of his most animated addresses in days, much of it devoted to fighting poverty. In America, he said, “you should never be homeless, you should never be hungry.”

As president, he vowed to “lift up every American out of poverty.”

Obama later told reporters on his plane that Edwards can help draw working-class voters and others to his campaign.

“I have no doubt that John Edwards can be extremely helpful to us campaigning in every demographic. But his passion and credibility when it comes to issues of poverty and the plight of working people in this country, I think, is a message that is powerful and one that fits with the kind of vision I have for America,” he said.

Former Edwards adviser Chris Kofinis also told FOX News the endorsement could help Obama gain the trust of blue-collar voters.

“It’s a significant event if for no other reason, he helps unify and move the party forward, and it really, I think, puts the Clinton campaign … behind the eight-ball,” he said.

Obama aides said the two spoke Tuesday night when Obama arrived in Michigan, and that Edwards decided Wednesday to endorse.

Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth, who has said she thinks Clinton has the superior health care plan, did not travel with him to Michigan and is not part of the endorsement.

Edwards still has 19 delegates to his name, according to Associated Press tallies — won in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Most of those delegates have already been selected, meaning they are technically free to support whomever they choose at the party’s national convention, regardless of Edwards’ endorsement.

Obama has a total of 1,887 delegates, leaving him just 139 delegates short of the 2,026 needed to clinch the nomination. Clinton has 1,718 delegates, according to the latest tally by The Associated Press.

David “Mudcat” Saunders, a chief adviser for Edwards on rural affairs during his presidential campaign, said the timing of the endorsement couldn’t be better given Obama’s resounding loss in West Virginia.

“For Barack Obama, I think he ought to kiss Johnny Edwards on the lips to kill this 41-point loss,” he added. “The story is not going to be the 41-point loss. It’s going to be Edwards’ endorsement.”

The Republican National Committee was quick to release a statement ridiculing the endorsement.

“Barack Obama and John Edwards share an out-of-touch agenda that would raise taxes on families while cutting funding for our troops. The only question is why didn’t Edwards endorse sooner? Edwards’ endorsement of a candidate he previously blasted as inexperienced, hypocritical, and lacking substance will not help Obama with voters looking for real change,” Chairman Robert M. “Mike” Duncan said in the statement.

FOX News’ Bonney Kapp and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton can agree on one thing — they want their party to have more money, no matter who is the nominee.

The Democratic National Committee announced Wednesday that it had signed agreements with both campaigns to begin raising money together.

As part of the unusual pact, donors can contribute up to $33,100 to the newly created Democratic White House Victory Fund. The money would benefit whichever candidate becomes the nominee.

Officials at the DNC said Chairman Howard Dean has been working with both campaigns on the idea since February.

The new arrangement comes as the DNC could use an infusion of money. At the end of March, the DNC had $5.3 million in the bank, compared to $31 million for the Republican National Committee.

“In signing this agreement, Senator Clinton and Senator Obama are demonstrating their commitment to unifying our party and ensuring that we have the resources needed to win the White House, no matter who the nominee is,” Dean said in a statement.

The victory fund will not accept money from federal lobbyists or political action committees, in keeping with a restriction that Obama has placed on his fundraising.

If a donor contributed the maximum amount, $28,500 would go to the Democratic Party and the remaining $4,600 would be placed in an escrow account until the party has a presidential nominee. The $4,600 would be equally divided into primary election donations and general election donations.

If a donor had already given the maximum permitted to the eventual nominee, the money would be returned. The candidate who does not get the nomination would receive no money.

With Obama approaching the necessary number of delegates to secure the nomination, the deal permits some of Clinton donors to get behind Obama without having to write a check directly to his campaign.

If the nominee decides to accept public financing in the fall, the general election contributions also would be returned.

In another money-related development, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by the DNC against likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain. The suit alleged that McCain had violated campaign finance law by improperly using the promise of federal matching funds for his campaign to secure a loan.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates said the lawsuit was premature because such a complaint must first go to the Federal Election Commission. The DNC had argued that the commission is unable to act because it lacks a quorum as it awaits confirmation of five nominees.

“Unless there is a serious and timely investigation under way by the FEC, we will be back in court in the end of June to hold McCain accountable for breaking the law,” DNC spokeswoman Stacie Paxton said.