Florida Sen. Bill Nelson speaks before the Democratic National Committee panel considering the disputed Florida and Michigan primaries Saturday in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo)

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Democratic leaders were still grappling with how to count the disputed Michigan primary results at a high-stakes meeting late Saturday in Washington, D.C., as sources said an unofficial compromise has been reached to seat the Florida delegation at the August convention.

A rules panel of the Democratic National Committee has been reviewing both states’ primaries all day, after they were stripped of their delegates for holding early contests in violation of party rules.

Hillary Clinton, who won both contests, is banking on the DNC meeting as one of her last chances to make up ground against Barack Obama’s huge delegate lead.

The Florida compromise, which according to Democratic sources calls for all state delegates to be seated, each with a half-vote, has the backing of the Florida Democratic Party and Obama’s campaign, though it still must be approved by the committee. The Clinton camp has indicated it would grudgingly accept such a deal, though Clinton wants both states’ delegations counted in full.

But the Michigan case before the Rules and Bylaws Committee is more complicated than the one in Florida, since Obama’s name was not on the primary ballot in Michigan. Clinton prevailed over ballots cast as “uncommitted,” and Obama’s allies claim the large majority of those votes were cast by his supporters.

The basic options before the panel are to count all the delegates, count some of them or uphold the original 100 percent penalty.

Mark Brewer, the state party chairman, urged the panel Saturday to award Clinton 69 delegates and Obama 59 — an allocation that neither candidate has endorsed publicly.

Not long afterward, former Rep. David Bonior of Michigan, speaking on behalf of the Obama campaign, said the delegates “should be split evenly between the two candidates.”

But former Gov. Jim Blanchard, representing Clinton, said the former first lady should receive 73 delegates, with 55 awarded to uncommitted, in accordance with the primary vote. “Respect the voters of our great state. They deserve respect,” he said.

Clinton supporters are angry about the proposal from the Michigan Democratic Party. Brewer told the rules committee that the numbers were derived from exit polls showing most of those who voted uncommitted in Michiganwere in fact Obama supporters.

But Clinton supporters protested, saying delegates have never been allocated based on exit polls — and sources tell FOX News that exit polls were never part of the calculation. It was more of a compromise between the two other plans.

The at-times heated meeting Saturday drew representatives from both states and both campaigns, as well as hundreds of protesters.

In the opening hours of the meeting, Clinton’s designated spokeswoman urged the panel to grant a full vote for each of Florida’s 211 disputed delegates.

“In life you don’t get everything you want. I want it all,” Florida state Sen. Arthenia Joyner said with a smile.

But moments later, Obama’s campaign called for half-votes for each of the 211. Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida said that marked an “extraordinary concession, in order to promote reconciliation with Florida’s voters.”

Obama supporters cheered loudly when he spoke, but there were boos from some in the audience who back Clinton.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean kicked off the meeting calling for “healing” and “party unity” in the wake of a primary campaign season that he said has brought out high emotions, as well as racism and sexism.

Dean said that the protracted contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has made the party and the candidates “much stronger,” but he gave a clear sign that it is time to set aside differences.

“This is not about our candidates. This is not about Barack Obama. This is not about Hillary Clinton. This is about our country,” Dean said in Washington, D.C. “Over the course of this primary there have been some very tough disagreements and some ugly moments in this campaign.

“Emotions have run very high and heated discussions have led at times to blatant sexist comments, particularly by some members of the media, and blatantly racist remarks. And we know that those comments have no place in our society and certainly no place in our party. … Your actions today will put us back on a course of party unity,” Dean said.

Hundreds of protesters, many supporting Clinton, were bussed in to demonstrate outside the building where the meeting was being held.

They carried signs that said “Count my vote or Count me out” and “Enough is enough. Count the votes. Every single damn one!”

Obama discouraged supporters from demonstrating but the Clinton campaign invited them. There were nearly 500 protesters on the sidewalks as the meeting was set to begin.

“They’re exercising their right to protest, to make sure that every Hillary Clinton vote is counted,” Michigan Rep. John Conyers Jr. remarked as he arrived at the meeting Saturday.

Dean called for a compromise that respects both the voters who personally did nothing to violate party rules, and the candidates and states that abided by party rules. If each state has half its delegates restored, that probably would add fewer than 30 more delegates to the total that Obama needs, with three more contests to go — Puerto Rico on Sunday and Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday.

In all, there were 368 delegates in limbo.

That totaled 211 from Florida, including 185 who would have been elected if the primary had counted, and an additional 26 superdelegates, who are party leaders. If they are all seated with a half vote, Clinton will likely gain a net 19 pledged delegates.

For Michigan, the breakdown was 128 delegates who would have been elected if the primary had counted and an additional 29 super delegates.

Members of the committee discussed their options over a lengthy dinner with Dean that began Friday night and lasted until 2 a.m. Saturday. People who attended said no deals were reached, although there was a widespread sentiment that they should try to come up with some resolution that would put the issue behind them.

All candidates agreed not to campaign in either state in January.

“It’s important to send the right signals to them and the people living in those states that we Democrats value those states, value those voters and want them as full partners in a general election in assembling 270 electoral votes,” said Clinton strategist Harold Ickes, a member of the rules committee.

Obama could afford to allow Clinton a few delegates — going into the meeting, he was just 42 away from the nomination out of more than 2,000 required. Clinton was more than 200 delegates behind.

Obama campaign officials, eager to move on, said they were willing to give Clinton the edge in delegates, but they were not willing to accept the Clinton camp’s hard-line stance that all the delegates should be fully seated in accordance to the January elections.

“We have both fought hard throughout the country, both of us, for delegates and the fact that we’re willing to essentially cede her delegates we do not think is an insignificant gesture on our part,” Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said.

“But we’re willing to do this in the interest of trying to bring this to a close so we can focus on the general election.”

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

Hillary Clinton speaks at a campaign stop in Huron, S.D., Thursday. (AP Photo)

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Hillary Clinton and her supporters are making what may be their last stand, at a Democratic Party meeting this weekend in Washington, D.C.

When a rules panel of the Democratic National Committee takes up the issue of disputed Michigan and Florida primaries Saturday morning, Clinton’s campaign will continue to argue that the delegations from both states should be seated in full.

The Florida-Michigan decision is practically her only remaining chance of securing a tidal wave of delegates. As of Friday, the New York senator was more than 200 delegates behind Barack Obama, and in the three primaries left to go she cannot win enough to make up that difference.

“We are hopeful and confident that after having a full-blown discussion … all the delegates will be seated, 100 percent, all of them will have a full vote,” Clinton adviser Harold Ickes said in a conference call with reporters Friday.

Clinton won both states, but their delegations were stripped for holding early primaries in violation of party rules. The options before the Rules and Bylaws Committee on Saturday are to restore the delegates in full, restore part of the delegation or uphold the original penalty.

Obama has said he’s willing to have some delegates seated, and party leaders have expressed hope that DNC Chairman Howard Dean can broker a compromise to ensure party unity come June.

Clinton’s campaign, though, is encouraging supporters to head to the meeting Saturday to protest.

“These people are coming. They’re going to speak. They’re going to peacefully say, ‘We support what’s going on in this room.’ … We want them to be part of the entire picture of the Democratic Party,” Clinton adviser Tina Flournoy said Friday, objecting to anybody who tries to describe the scene as “chaos” or a “circus.”

In a letter to the committee Friday, the campaign’s general counsel said the possibility of no delegates being seated is “an unacceptable outcome.”

The letter said that the campaign wants “all” delegates restored and disputed a DNC lawyer’s assessment that the committee is unable to restore more than half of the delegates.

“This conclusion is incorrect,” the letter said, arguing that the committee can “forgive violations” when “positive steps” have been taken to come into compliance.

The vexing question is how the delegates would be allocated even if they were counted.

Neither candidate campaigned in the states, and Obama was not even on the ballot in Michigan. Many Michigan voters who favored Obama registered their support by voting “uncommitted.”

A Florida proposal suggests reducing the state’s delegation by half, while Michigan Democrats have proposed splitting the delegates, giving Clinton 69 and Obama 59.

But the Clinton campaign says since not all “uncommitted” voters in Michigan wanted Obama, it would be arbitrary to execute such a plan.

DNC member Joel Ferguson, a Clinton supporter, also said that plan is “fatally flawed.”

“If you’re going to solve breaking rules, you can’t do it by having a new set of rules,” he told FOX News, adding that Obama shouldn’t get extra points for taking his name off the Michigan ballot.

Committee Co-Chairman James Roosevelt said it’s possible the issue could be appealed to the Credentials Committee if there’s no agreement this weekend.

But party officials already have said they will step in to prevent this fight from going to the August convention.

The Clinton campaign in its letter even stated that the rules committee should resolve the issue “promptly” and discussed the possibility of seating the delegations from both states with half-votes. That would be a compromise from the Clinton campaign.

Though she is pushing for a complete reversal of the original DNC decision on Michigan and Florida, that alone would not save her ailing campaign.

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.

Obama, with 1,984 delegates, is just 42 shy of the 2,026 it takes to clinch the nomination. Clinton is at 1,782.

The Obama campaign acknowledges that Saturday’s decision may increase the number of delegates it takes to win, but says the race will still be over soon.

Montana and South Dakota hold the final Democratic primaries in the country Tuesday, after Puerto Rico holds its contest Sunday.

“As long as by Tuesday Senator Obama’s campaign ends with more pledged delegates — and there’s no mathematical way that does not happen — he’s clearly gonna be the nominee by almost every measure,” said Chris Kofinis, former spokesman for Democratic candidate John Edwards. “And if that happens you’re gonna see a wave of superdelegates go his way.”

Click here to read more about the DNC meeting.  

FOX News’ Aaron Bruns and Caroline Shively contributed to this report.

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LANSING, Mich. — A top Michigan Democrat has broken ranks with state party leaders, saying a plan to split the state’s national convention delegates 69-59 between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama is “fatally flawed.”

Democratic National Committee member Joel Ferguson — a Clinton supporter — sent a letter Thursday to the co-chairs of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee seeking to seat all of Michigan’s delegates based on the results of the disputed Jan. 15 election.

Failing that, he says the pledged delegates should get a half-vote each and superdelegates should get a full vote, a plan Florida also is proposing.

Clinton, who won Michigan’s primary, wants to have the full delegation seated. Obama, who is close to having enough delegates to lockup the nomination, has opposed that, noting he took his name off the Michigan ballot after the DNC said it would strip the state of its delegates as punishment for moving up its primary date in violation of party rules.

The rules committee is to meet Saturday to hear plans for seating delegates from Michigan and Florida, which was also stripped of its delegates for holding a January primary.

His letter puts him at odds with the Michigan Democratic Party’s chairman and executive committee, which support the proposed 69-59 split.

State Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer didn’t immediately reply to a call seeking comment.

Under Ferguson’s plan, Clinton would get 73 pledged delegates for winning the Michigan presidential primary, while “uncommitted” would get 55. The Clinton campaign has maintained that Obama should not get any Michigan delegates even though many of his supporters voted for “uncommitted.”

“I am convinced that neither the RBC nor the DNC have the authority to take pledged delegates allocated to Hillary Clinton by virtue of the popular vote and assign them to either Uncommitted or to Barack Obama as the challenge seeks,” Ferguson wrote in his letter.

The plan to split the delegates 69-59 was drawn up by a four-member team of prominent Michigan Democrats.

“We spent a lot of time working with both campaigns trying to figure out a solution,” DNC member Debbie Dingell, who helped draw up the plan, said Thursday. “This is a consensus that was agreed to and the entire executive committee supported. At this point, we’re fighting for a principle that’s important.”

Hillary Clinton, shown here gazing at Mount Rushmore near Keystone, S.D., Wednesday, is pushing ahead with her call to fully seat the disputed Florida and Michigan delegations. (AP Photo)

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Hillary Clinton’s campaign plans to go forward with its push to have the disputed Michigan and Florida delegations seated in full, even after a memo from party lawyers said that the committee considering their plea cannot fully restore all the delegates.

The Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee is set to take up several challenges Saturday to the party decision to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates.

Clinton won both states and is pushing for the DNC to reverse its decision, even though neither she nor Barack Obama campaigned in those states and Obama wasn’t on the ballot in Michigan. The DNC meeting offers the trailing New York senator a critical one-time chance to pick up more delegates before the end of the primary season, June 3.

“Our expectation and our belief is that the DNC will vote on Saturday to seat Florida and Michigan at 100 percent,” Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said on a conference call Wednesday.

But the party’s legal experts wrote in a 38-page memo that DNC rules require the two states lose at least half of their convention delegates for holding elections too early.

The staff analysis says the rules committee has the authority to seat some delegates from the two states, but that seating half the delegates is “as far as it legally can” go.

The memo was sent late Tuesday to the 30 members of the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, which meets in Washington, D.C. this weekend.

The DNC analysis does not make recommendations for how the panel should vote, but gives context from the party’s charter and bylaws for the committee to consider.

Clinton adviser Tina Flournoy said Wednesday that the memo was merely a “neutral” analysis that outlined the positions of all sides, and disputed that it was definitively saying the delegations couldn’t be seated in full.

“We take the analysis straightforward … and believe that the RBC members will look at both sides of the issue and make a fair decision on Saturday,” she said, adding that the campaign still hopes “that the delegations will be seated in full.”

The DNC analysis said two options are available to include half the delegations — either allow half the number of delegates from each state into the convention or allow the full delegations to attend, but give them each half a vote.

“The rule does not actually specify whether the reduction is to be accomplished on the basis of delegate positions or delegate votes,” the analysis said, giving committee members some justification for sending the entire delegations with half-votes as some leaders in the states want.

The analysis also underscores a prickly problem: If the Rules and Bylaws Committee decides to restore any of the states’ delegates, there is no simple way to divide them between Clinton and Obama.

That’s especially true in Michigan, where Obama had his name pulled from the ballot. He didn’t have the option of removing his name in Florida, but all the candidates signed a pledge not to campaign in either state.

Clinton won the majority of the vote in Florida and Michigan and has been arguing that the delegates should be fully restored according to the results of the January primaries. But even if they were, it would not be enough for her to overtake Obama’s delegate lead. He has 1,979 to her 1,780. Without the two states, the winning candidate would need 2,026 delegates to take the nomination.

As it becomes clearer that Obama likely will win the nomination, he has been working to win over voters in the two states with visits in recent days. He plans to return to Michigan on Monday.

The DNC staff analysis argues that the Rules and Bylaws Committee was fully within its rights to strip all 368 delegates from the two states when they scheduled primaries in January. Party rules said their nominating contests could be no earlier than Feb. 5. Michigan voted on Jan. 15, Florida on Jan. 29.

The analysis also said one option is to restore 100 percent of the delegates — by a recommendation of the Credentials Committee that meets later this summer. However, that would mean a final decision would not be made until the first day of the convention in Denver since Credentials Committee decisions have to be approved by the full convention as it convenes — risking a floor fight.

Clinton advisers would not speculate about the possibility of an appeals process that lasts through the summer.

“We fully expect …. that these issues will be resolved on Saturday,” adviser Harold Ickes said. “That’s a bridge to cross when we come to that particular stream.”

Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe acknowledged Wednesday that the weekend decision could alter the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination. Currently, it takes 2,026 to secure the nomination, and Obama is 45 delegates away.

“Our magic number could increase kind of at the 11th hour here,” Plouffe said Wednesday, adding: “If it’s raised a little bit based on the Rules Committee, we’ll have to go get some more superdelegates. But at some point we’re the nominee.”

He said Obama’s willingness to seat some delegates is something “I don’t think should be sneezed at.”

Saturday’s meeting is expected to draw a large crowd, with both sides’ supporters encouraging a protest outside demanding varying formations of the states’ delegates be seated. Proponents of full re-seating have mailed committee members Florida oranges and pairs of shoes to get their attention.

Plouffe said Wednesday that campaign supporters should not protest because it’s “not a helpful dynamic to create chaos.”

“I don’t think a scene is helpful to party unity,” Plouffe said.

Obama supporter and former DNC Chairman David Wilhelm said Obama supporters are “not going to turn this thing into a circus.”

The warnings put the burden on Clinton supporters to tone down what’s expected to be heated rhetoric and street theater staged to sway the rules committee to seat all the delegates.

DNC officials are concerned about a potentially large turnout at the “Count Every Vote” rally outside the event and have asked the hotel staff to increase security to keep everyone safe. The DNC says the roughly 500 seats available to the public inside were taken within three or four minutes of becoming available online Tuesday.

Alice Huffman, a member of the Rules and Bylaws Committee from California who is supporting Clinton, said she has been barraged with e-mails in the past few weeks. She said the senders include Floridians who are upset that they are being disenfranchised, and she has started printing out the messages so she’ll have a record to explain her decision.

“This is a really, really significant issue to women. Obviously it’s a significant item to people of color too. So I’m just preparing myself as best I can,” said Huffman, president of the California NAACP.

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

Democratic leaders are hopeful that Party Chairman Howard Dean can help negotiate a peaceful and palatable resolution to the dispute over Florida's and Michigan's delegates this weekend. (AP Photo)

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Howard Dean’s drive toward party unity will be put to the test this weekend when the Democratic Party meets to hash out one of the most divisive wedges of the primary season.

A 30-member panel of the Democratic National Committee is set to consider the dispute over the discounted Michigan and Florida convention delegates Saturday.

The DNC chairman, who has staked his reputation on a political strategy that involves reaching out to every state to win elections, has said recently he’s committed to seating those delegations — which were stripped because the states held early primaries.

But it’s a sensitive matter, and the meeting’s outcome could make lasting impressions not just on the primary race, but on the Democratic ticket’s potency going into the fall election. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and party leaders in both states are all attempting to influence the process.

Handled incorrectly, Democratic leaders worry it could be the thread that teases the party loose come November. So they are hopeful Dean, along with the campaigns and panel members, are able to reach a compromise that bridges a party already hurting from a bitter and protracted primary campaign.

“What’s at stake is nothing less than the confidence of Florida voters going into the general election, and the presidency itself,” said Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

She faults Dean and DNC leadership for early on criticizing Florida and Michigan in TV interviews and fanning the “flames” of their decision, which she said was over the top.

Party rules automatically allowed for cutting the delegations in half, which is what the Republican Party did. The DNC stripped the entire delegations.

“They just went way overboard and cut off their nose to spite their face,” she said.

But she said Dean has recently moved to reconcile with the states and is hopeful the panel reaches a fair solution.

Battle of the Titans?

At first blush, the weekend meeting is a battle between two rival Democrats.

Clinton, who won both states even though neither candidate campaigned there, has been steadily beating the drum for both delegations to be seated in full. Obama, moving closer to clinching the nomination, has shown a willingness to at least seat some of the delegates, but he wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan.

“Resolution, resolution,” Obama said Saturday when asked what he wants to come out of the DNC meeting. “I just want them to decide how to approach this in a way in which the Florida and Michigan delegates are seated and they’re happy … I want to be looking at ‘em when I’m standing on stage in Denver in August.”

Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said the campaign is still “fighting for every delegate to be seated.”

He said things are looking “pretty good” and that full seating of the delegations would help most with party unity.

“The campaigns are looking at this strictly in terms of how they might get assistance or how they might be hurt by a potential solution,” said former DNC Chairman Don Fowler. “I think that … Governor Dean should be very actively involved in talking to (both) sides to work out an arrangement.”

But Obama has moved close enough to clinching the nomination that even if he cedes ground on Florida and Michigan, he’s still relatively protected from the possibility of Clinton staging an 11th-hour revolt against his front-running campaign.

Obama is looking more to make a gesture to Florida and Michigan voters, which is what party leaders also are after. They want to put the dispute to rest, and unite against presumptive GOP nominee John McCain.

“I find it unbelievably unfortunate that here we are at the end of May … and we are talking about process instead of John McCain,” DNC Secretary Alice Germond, one of the 30 panel members, told FOXNews.com.

“Hopefully the process part will end on Sunday … We know what’s at stake.”

Clinton has already dredged up in recent days the bitter feelings Democrats harbor toward even the hint of disenfranchisement. In pursuing her delegate argument, Clinton has invited comparisons between the DNC decision and the 2000 election in Florida that cost Democrats the White House.

“You’ll have the disenfranchisement word being tossed around (this weekend),” Germond said.

It will probably be tossed around from both sides. Voters whose primary ballots basically had no impact on the Democratic race can cry foul, but if the DNC turns around to count those primaries in full, voters who stayed home during the Michigan and Florida primaries because they thought they were null and void can also complain.

Germond said the rules have to count for something, and that it’s important to be fair to the 48 states who “abided by the rules.”

“I hope to see this as the beginning of the unity that will be important as we go into the convention and into the general election,” she said. “We’ll probably have to come up with a resolution that probably won’t make anyone 100 percent happy, but will make everyone a little happy … that’s what a compromise is.”

Starting Points

There are two concrete plans for seating the states’ pledged delegates before the committee.

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.

“Everybody believes that Michigan and Florida will be seated,” said plan co-author Michigan Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick. “The division of the delegates is the question.”

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.

Wasserman Schultz said she wants the Florida delegation seated in full, but at least the latest Florida proposal is based on the primary election results - and not an arbitrary allocation.

The Rules and Bylaws Committee could consider other options on Saturday and will hear the cases of both campaigns.

But the committee could also forward the matter on to a separate committee. Clinton has shown a willingness to fight the Florida-Michigan decision as long as it takes to reach what she feels is an equitable solution.

Dean, however, has given every indication he does not want to see a primary battle last past June.

In an interview with FOX News May 4, he again called on uncommitted superdelegates to make their endorsement by the end of June “so we’ll know who our nominee is” by then.

“It’s tough on the party,” he said of the long process. “But there is also enormous merit to everybody in America getting a chance to vote for these candidates in the primaries.”

Saturday’s meeting will test just how focused and effective Dean can be when it comes to wrapping up the nomination process.

Kilpatrick said this weekend’s meeting has a direct impact on how long the primary lasts.

Neither side is approaching it lightly. The Huffington Post and the Daily Kos blogs posted recent articles about the swarms of protesters from both camps who may descend on the DNC meeting.

But either proposed state plan seems to bode well for Obama.

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.

As of Tuesday, Clinton was 198 delegates down from Obama, so that still wouldn’t close his lead.

Obama had 1,978 delegates Tuesday - 48 short of the 2,026 delegates currently needed to seize the nomination. Saturday’s meeting, though, could alter that threshold.

DNC member Debbie Dingell, who helped draft the Michigan delegate proposal, expressed surprise that what began as “a tiny bit of civil disobedience” - an early primary to move influence away from early-voting Iowa and New Hampshire - resulted in such party disarray.

“Nobody predicted it would be like this,” she said.

But she too was hopeful there would be resolution this weekend.

“Our hope is Michigan gets seated and we all start pulling together around a candidate,” she said. “We’ve got to pull together so we win in November.”

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

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Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are both fighting reports that their campaigns are in talks about Clinton possibly cutting her losses and joining up as Obama’s running mate.

Clinton called such reports “flatly untrue,” in an interview Friday with the Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial board, adding that she is not planning any such discussions.

Asked if her campaign had any discussions with the Obama campaign about her possibly bowing out in exchange for the vice president slot, Clinton said: “It is flatly untrue and it is not anything I’m entertaining. It is nothing I have planned and it is nothing I am prepared to engage in. I am still vigorously campaigning.”

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs also said such speculation is “completely untrue.”

“Both campaigns I think are rightly focused on the last three contests that are left in the race and after that we’ll know the nominee,” he told FOX News. “There haven’t been any discussions with the Clinton campaign on this topic.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a staunch Clinton supporter, said Friday she believes that if Obama becomes the nominee he should select Clinton as his running mate.

“I think as this race has emerged each one of them has garnered a different constituency and different states, and therefore when you put the two of them together it forms, I believe, the strongest ticket,” she told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson is overseeing the early vetting of possible vice presidential running mates for Obama, Democratic officials say. He did the same job for Democratic nominees John Kerry in 2004 and Walter Mondale in 1984.

But in her editorial board interview, Clinton tried to muffle calls for the Democratic race to end.

“Between my opponent and his camp and some in the media there has been this urgency to end this, and you know historically that makes no sense. So I find it a bit of a mystery,” she said.

Clinton continued to argue that she has a popular-vote advantage and that the dispute over the Michigan and Florida primaries still must be resolved.

Clinton won those contests, but the states were stripped of their delegates for holding early primaries.

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