Hillary Clinton's strategy of last resort
Unable to revive her presidential campaign at the polls, Hillary Rodham Clinton now envisions a road to the nomination built on disputes over Democratic Party rules and fights over delegate selections. But on Wednesday even that route looked unattainable, with some key party officials warning that they would not cooperate with Clinton's strategy.
The party leaders' comments came as they digested Tuesday night's election results from Indiana and North Carolina -- results that extended Barack Obama's lead over Clinton in both the popular vote and nominating delegates and led some to conclude that the New York senator simply could not catch up.
The Democratic leaders' reaction suggested that setbacks for Clinton's new strategy could come as early as May 31, when a party committee meets to consider the dispute over delegates from Florida and Michigan. Under party rules adopted before the campaign began, the two states were stripped of their delegates as punishment for holding their primaries earlier than allowed.
Clinton won the states 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 an unfair attempt to move the goal line. Obama's name was not on the Michigan ballot, and neither campaigned in Florida.
Several party officials said Wednesday that they did not support the Clinton strategy of reinstating the states' entire delegations.
"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 Democratic National Committee member from California who sits on the rules committee and plans to object to the Clinton proposal to count Florida and Michigan.
Other Democratic officials said Wednesday that they feared the political damage to the party if Clinton were to succeed in using 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 to the national convention. "If they were being used, they'd be used to deny the nomination to an African American who followed the rules. It's inconceivable to me that we would want to do that," he said.
