While the move left Florida's 210 delegates in limbo, Democrats in Michigan moved closer to holding another contest, on June 3. Legislative leaders there reviewed a bill yesterday that would set up a privately funded, state-administered do-over primary, the Associated Press learned.

Michigan's Democratic-led House is scheduled to leave for a two-week vacation Thursday, so any bill to set up the primary must be brought up quickly. It also would need approval by the Republican-controlled state Senate, the campaigns of Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee, state party leaders, and Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who is supporting Clinton.

In Florida, state Democratic chairwoman Karen L. Thurman announced in a letter that "a party-run primary or caucus has been ruled out, and it's simply not possible for the state to hold another election, even if the party were to pay for it."

She wrote: "This doesn't mean that Democrats are giving up on Florida voters. It means that a solution will have to come from the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee, which is scheduled to meet again in April."

Florida's congressional delegation had unanimously opposed the mail-in plan, and Obama had expressed concern about the security of a mail-in vote organized so quickly.

Clinton's campaign expressed disappointment with Florida's decision. Spokesman Phil Singer said: "We hope the Obama campaign shares our belief that Florida's voters must be counted and cannot be disenfranchised."

Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said: "We hope that all parties can agree on a fair seating of the Florida delegates so that Florida can participate in the Democratic convention."

The national party punished Michigan and Florida for moving up their primaries before Feb. 5, stripping them of their delegates to the August convention. All the Democratic candidates agreed not to campaign in the two states; Obama was not even on the Michigan ballot. Clinton won both primaries. - AP

Candidates a vote closer to nomination

The number of delegates needed to secure the nomination fell to 2,024 because of several changes among superdelegates. The highest-profile change was the resignation of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who had endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. His successor, David Paterson, already is a Clinton superdelegate through his post as an at-large member of the Democratic National Committee.

Superdelegates are the party and elected officials who can support whomever they choose at the party's national convention.

In the overall contest for the nomination, Sen. Barack Obama had 1,617 delegates yesterday, including 213 superdelegates. Clinton had 1,498 delegates, including 249 superdelegates, according to the latest Associated Press count.

The delegate roster now stands at 4,047 delegates, including 794 superdelegates, the Democratic National Committee said. - AP

Bill Clinton disputes racial criticism

In an interview with ABC's Good Morning America broadcast yesterday, Clinton said he had gotten a "bum rap" from the news media after he compared Sen. Barack Obama's landslide victory in South Carolina's Jan. 26 primary to Jesse Jackson's wins in the state in 1984 and 1988. Clinton was widely criticized for appearing to cast Obama as little more than a black candidate popular in a state with a heavily black electorate.

Clinton said the media "made up a race story out of that," calling it "a bizarre spin." On CNN's American Morning, he called the notion that he had unfairly criticized Obama in South Carolina "a total myth and a mugging." - AP