By Brian Faler and Edwin Chen
May 31 (Bloomberg) -- The Democratic Party reached a compromise over how to count disputed delegates in Florida and Michigan, in a bid to resolve a months-long quarrel that has helped prolong the presidential-nomination race.
A party committee voted to seat delegations from the two states at the August nominating convention, though with only a half-vote for each delegate. The deal, reached after a sometimes raucous daylong meeting, gives Hillary Clinton a net gain of 24 delegates, a margin that's unlikely to stall Barack Obama's momentum toward getting the nomination.
While Clinton's backers say they were satisfied with the Florida accord, they raised the prospect of a floor fight at the convention over the way the Michigan dispute was resolved, saying Obama had been awarded too many delegates.
Harold Ickes, a Clinton adviser, said he ``strongly'' objects to the Michigan plan, saying it would cost her four delegates. He said Clinton reserved the right to appeal the decision to another committee, a warning that was met with both cheers and catcalls from activists at the meeting.
``Hijacking four delegates, notwithstanding the flawed aspect of this, is not a good way to start down the path of party unity,'' Ickes told the panel in Washington.
Punished for Violation
The Michigan resolution was closer to the Obama campaign's demand that the delegates be evenly split between the two candidates. Clinton won both of the disputed primaries.
The party's rules and bylaws committee voted 27-0 to seat Florida's delegation and give Clinton 52.5 delegates; Obama would get 33.5. The panel voted 19-8 to similarly seat the Michigan delegation, giving Clinton 34.5 delegate votes and Obama 29.5. Superdelegates -- the lawmakers and party officials who get an automatic vote at the convention and who are likely to decide the nomination -- will also get only half votes.
Both states were punished for violating party rules and moving up the dates of their primaries.
Obama, 46, applauded today's solution.
He said Clinton, 60, would gain a ``substantial'' number of delegates and that ``many members of the Florida and Michigan delegations feel satisfied that the decision was fair.'' He won't try to dissuade the Clinton campaign from contesting the party's decision, he told reporters in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where he's campaigning. ``I trust they will do the right thing'' and ``will be motivated by an interest in bringing the party together.''
Rally Party
Democrats are counting on the compromise -- which came after several hours of private deliberations among panel members -- to help the party rally around a single candidate and avoid alienating voters in the two crucial states.
Either way, the accord solidifies Obama's lead in the delegate race. With the addition of the Michigan and Florida contingents, 2,118 delegates are needed to secure the nomination. Before today, Obama had 1,984.5 delegates and Clinton 1,784.5, according to a tally of pledged delegates and campaign lists of superdelegate endorsements.
Today's decision gives the Illinois senator an additional 33.5 votes in Florida and 29.5 in Michigan, giving him a total of 2047.5. Clinton, a New York senator, picked up 52.5 delegates in Florida and 34.5 in Michigan, bringing her total to 1,871.5.
Half-votes for each of the states' pledged superdelegates add at least 7.5 votes to Clinton's total and three to Obama's, bringing Obama within 67.5 delegates of securing the nomination. Only 86 pledged delegates remain to be awarded, with 55 at stake in tomorrow's Puerto Rico primary and another 31 total in the June 3 Montana and South Dakota primaries.
Favored in Puerto Rico
Clinton is favored to win Puerto Rico, where a poll by the newspaper El Vocero and Univision conducted May 8-20 showed Clinton leading 51 percent to Obama's 38 percent. Obama is favored in South Dakota and Montana, with polls showing him leading by more than 10 points in each state.
Given the Democrats' system of allocating delegates proportionately, Obama may be within 30 delegates of securing the nomination after the three primaries, with the possibility that some of the more than 180 remaining uncommitted superdelegates may back him in the next week.
The Democratic National Committee stripped all the delegates from Florida and Michigan last year for violating a schedule set out by the party, and Obama, Clinton and the other Democratic candidates agreed to abide by the penalty. None of the contenders campaigned in Michigan and Florida, and Obama, along with several other candidates, withdrew his name from the Michigan ballot.
Michigan Vote
Clinton won Michigan's contest with 55 percent of the vote; 40 percent cast ballots for ``uncommitted.'' Former Michigan Governor Jim Blanchard, representing the Clinton campaign, urged the panel earlier today to allocate the state's delegates in accordance with those results. That would have given Clinton 73 delegates and Obama, 55.
As the nomination contest dragged on between Obama and Clinton, that decision took on more importance. Clinton, trailing Obama in delegates, had pushed to have all the pledged delegates from the states restored, a position at odds with party rules and opposed by Obama's campaign.
Some Clinton supporters say the committee's decision won't alter the dynamic of the race. ``Some sanction is required,'' Donald Fowler, a member of the rules committee and a Clinton backer from South Carolina, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television before the vote. ``It's hard to see at this point how there could be any wholesale shift one way or the other.''
To contact the reporters on this story: Brian Faler in Washington at bfaler@bloomberg.net; and Edwin Chen in Washington at echen32@bloomberg.net.
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