Clinton Wins Shift Focus to Fla., Mich.

Democrats are now giving the first serious consideration to conducting re-votes in Florida and Michigan, after Senator Clinton's wins over Senator Obama Tuesday signaled that the nominating fight could be unsettled until Puerto Rico's June primary or perhaps all the way through to the Democratic convention in Denver in August.

The governors of Florida and Michigan issued calls yesterday for the Democrats to make some accommodation that would lift the lockout the party imposed after those states moved their primaries to dates earlier than permitted under party rules. Mrs. Clinton won both states, though there was no campaigning there and Mr. Obama took his name off of the Michigan ballot.

Last night, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, said he welcomed the effort to bring the two states back into the process, but added that the notion of seating delegates based on the out-of-compliance primaries was a nonstarter.

"We strongly encourage the Michigan and Florida state parties to follow the rules, so today's public overtures are good news," Dr. Dean said in a written statement. "Out of respect for the presidential campaigns and the states that did not violate party rules, we are not going to change the rules in the middle of the game."

Dr. Dean seemed to urge the state parties to submit new proposals for allocating delegates, though he also acknowledged that the states had the option of waiting until August and taking up the matter with the credentials committee in Denver.

Neither campaign immediately embraced the talk of re-votes. Strategists for Mrs. Clinton said they favored recognizing the January 15 vote in Michigan and the January 29 election in Florida. Mr. Obama's campaign said simply that it would abide by the rules. Polling and demographics in those states mean a re-vote would probably benefit Mrs. Clinton, though it seems doubtful that it would allow the former first lady to overtake the lead of about 140 delegates the Illinois senator holds among those selected through primaries and caucuses.

Mrs. Clinton's victories Tuesday in the vote tallies in Ohio, Rhode Island, and Texas gave a huge psychological boost to her campaign, but they did little to close the gap with Mr. Obama in the delegate count. According to an Associated Press tally, Mrs. Clinton netted only about 12 delegates more than Mr. Obama Tuesday, though a dozen more delegates still hinged on the final vote results.

Even in Texas, which Mrs. Clinton carried Tuesday, 51% to 48%, Mr. Obama's campaign claimed a win of sorts yesterday when it asserted that he would best her by five delegates in the state because one third of the delegates were chosen through caucuses where the Illinois senator fared better.

The challenge for Mrs. Clinton is that the remaining contests offer only about 600 delegates, which means she would need heavily lopsided wins in those states in order to close the gap with Mr. Obama. Barring that, she would need to turn to the roughly 800 party leaders known as superdelegates who also cast votes at the convention. Mr. Obama's advisers have warned that such an intervention would usurp "the will of the people."

"Delegates are delegates are delegates," Mrs. Clinton's top delegate wrangler, Harold Ickes, responded yesterday in a conference call with reporters. "The Obama campaign for obvious reasons has made this distinction between pledged delegates and so-called superdelegates ….The fact is there is no distinction."

Mr. Ickes also argued that Democratic members of Congress, who are all superdelegates, could also be instruments of the popular will.

Some Democrats outside the Clinton campaign are warning that such a scenario could be catastrophic for the party. "The superdelegate problem is a serious one for Democrats. If superdelegates are used in a manner that appears to even hint at taking the nomination away from someone, particularly Barack Obama, it will create a thunderclap among Democrats that could really fracture the party," a political consultant in New York, Hank Sheinkopf, said. "That's dangerous."

Mr. Sheinkopf said superdelegates have the right to go their own way, but that it would be unwise to do so. "Harold Ickes is, in fact, correct about the rules, but the public perception is another matter," the consultant said.

Mrs. Clinton hinted yesterday that she might wind up trying to assuage Mr. Obama's supporters by giving him the vice presidential slot. Asked on CBS's "Early Show" about running on the same ticket with Mr. Obama, she said, "That may, you know, be where this is headed, but of course, we have to decide who's on the top of the ticket. And I think the people of Ohio very clearly said that it should be me."

The Clinton campaign argued in a public memo yesterday that Mrs. Clinton is more electable because she has won swing states and because, unlike Mr. Obama, she carries no risk of new scandal. "We think that Hillary has been vetted for the last 15 years. There's not another shoe in her closet to drop," Mr. Ickes said.

Mr. Obama's advisers were reported to be considering yesterday how to mount a more muscular counterattack against Mrs. Clinton without tarring the Illinois senator's reputation as an upbeat campaigner who eschews dirty tactics.

The Obama camp seized yesterday on Mrs. Clinton's failure to make public tax returns showing her and President Clinton's sources of income in recent years. After punting on the issue for months, the Clinton camp recently said it would make the returns for the last eight years public on April 15 because time was needed to assemble and organize the documents.

"They've talked about change you can Xerox. You can Xerox your tax returns. There's not a whole lot of preparation for that," an Obama adviser, David Axelrod, scoffed. "She's a habitual nondiscloser … . I think this is something the Republican Party will exploit with glee."