WASHINGTON - Barack Obama moved a step closer to locking up the Democratic nomination last night after a party committee resolved a long-standing impasse over seating delegates from Florida and Michigan.
The action by a Democratic National Committee panel, after an often raucous daylong meeting at a Washington hotel, removed one of the last obstacles to concluding the longest, most expensive and closest primary season in decades.
Obama appears to be only a few days away from clinching the nomination, according to Democratic strategists, who expect him to secure enough superdelegates by the middle of this week to go over the top.
Hillary Clinton picked up an estimated 24 delegates as a result of yesterday's decisions, but her campaign had hoped for much more. Clinton finished first in both states, which had been stripped of convention delegates last year after they jumped ahead of other states and scheduled primaries this January in violation of party rules governing the election calendar.
The compromise that ended the long-running dispute was reached after several Clinton backers on the national committee abandoned their candidate's hard-line position and endorsed proposals from Michigan and Florida Democrats that had the support of the Obama campaign.
"We agreed to this with the hopes that this would help draw people together," said former Michigan Rep. David E. Bonior, who spoke on Obama's behalf at the meeting.
'Gall and chutzpah'
The resentment of die-hard Clinton backers, after nearly 24 hours of largely closed-door deliberations by members of the Rules and Bylaws Committee, spilled out at the session in both the comments of Clinton supporters on the panel and outraged shouts from members of the audience.
Harold Ickes, a top Clinton campaign aide and longtime DNC member, said the effect of the national party's decision was to "hijack" the results of the non-binding Michigan primary vote.
Ickes announced that Clinton had authorized him to reserve her right to challenge the panel's action before the credentials committee of the national convention, though only Michigan Democrats would have standing to lodge a protest under party rules.
"I am stunned that we have the gall and the chutzpah to substitute our judgment for 600,000 voters," said Ickes, referring to the turnout for the non-binding Michigan primary.
