US:HUNDREDS of Hillary Clinton's supporters are planning to protest outside a Democratic party meeting in Washington tomorrow, demanding that all delegates from disputed primaries in Florida and Michigan should be seated at August's national convention in Denver.
Lawyers for the Democratic National Committee have told the party's rules and bylaws committee that they must punish both states, which held primaries earlier than authorised, by removing at least half their delegates.
Even if all 368 disputed delegates are recognised, Mrs Clinton has little chance of catching up with Barack Obama, who has a lead of about 200 delegates. If the party gives each delegate from Florida and Michigan half a vote, the former first lady could net 19 votes.
Fewer than 100 delegates are at stake in the three remaining primaries in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota, so Mrs Clinton's only hope of securing the nomination lies in persuading undeclared superdelegates to support her.
Only about 200 superdelegates remain undecided and Mrs Clinton made her pitch to them in a letter this week, arguing that she is the stronger candidate to face Republican John McCain in November.
Mrs Clinton hopes that, after the final primaries next Tuesday, she will have won a majority of the popular vote and will be close enough to Mr Obama in the delegate count to claim that the race is tied.
"Ultimately, the point of our primary process is to pick our strongest nominee - the one who would be the best president and commander-in-chief, who has the greatest support from members of our party, and who is most likely to win in November.
"So I hope you will consider not just the strength of the coalition backing me, but also that more people will have cast their votes for me," she wrote.
Mrs Clinton points to opinion polls that show her leading Mr McCain in battleground states like Florida, Ohio and Michigan, where Mr Obama is trailing the Republican.
Her appeal to superdelegates may have come too late, however, and Mr Obama predicted this week that, regardless of tomorrow's decision about Florida and Michigan, he will win the nomination next week. "At that point all the information will be in," he said.
"There will be no more questions unanswered. I suspect that remaining superdelegates will be able to make their decisions quickly after that." Mr Obama's campaign said yesterday that he may visit Iraq as part of an overseas trip this summer but he is unlikely to take up Mr McCain's suggestion of a joint visit to the war zone.
"The work that the men and women in our military are doing over there is far too important for them to be props in some sort of political stunt or photo-op," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
"What they're doing over there, separated from their families, giving for their country, it's truly amazing, and I think we would want to go over there and talk to them and see what sort of difficulties they're facing and see how it is that we can begin to carefully remove them and bring them back to their families and bring them back to the United States."
Mr McCain has criticised the Democrat for his failure to return to Iraq since 2006. The Republican's spokesman Brian Rogers said yesterday that Mr Obama should listen to the troops instead of insisting on withdrawal.
"The American people want a president and commander in chief who bases critical decisions on the facts, not ideology," he said.
"Senator Obama's willingness to deliberately ignore the facts on the ground reveals his flawed judgment, and reflects a position completely rooted in his ideology rather than reality.
"It's unfortunate that Senator Obama continues to refuse to seek the facts but instead will go to Iraq, look our troops in the eye, and admit defeat."
