In Florida, Clinton strikes a defiant tone

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), her back up against the wall in the Democratic nomination battle, made it clear at a rally in South Florida Wednesday she will stay in the fight until Michigan and Florida’s delegates are counted.

Clinton, fresh off a landslide win in Kentucky and a loss in Oregon, faces increasingly long odds to win the nomination from frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), and her chances rest now almost entirely on seating the two rogue states.

{mosads}With the DNC’s rules and bylaws committee set to meet at the end of the month, Clinton, speaking in Boca Raton, Fla., made her most impassioned plea yet, comparing the need to count the two states’ votes to infamous voting rights cases of the past.

“People have fought hard because they knew their vote was at stake and so was their children’s future,” Clinton said, adding “both Sen. Obama and myself have an obligation as potential Democratic nominees – in fact, we all have an obligation as Democrats – to carry on this legacy and ensure that in our nominating process every voice is heard and every single vote is counted.”

Clinton won the Florida and Michigan primaries after the two states were stripped of their delegates by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for skipping ahead in the primary schedule. Both candidates pledged not to campaign in either state, and Obama’s name did not appear on the ballot in Michigan.

After Tuesday night’s contest, Obama had successfully clinched the majority of the pledged delegates not including Michigan and Florida. Clinton’s speech Wednesday made it clear she wants to change that math.

To make that case, Clinton repeatedly referenced the 2000 Florida recount, using buzzwords and phrases from the time, as a comparable time of voter disenfranchisement.  
 
 
“Now, I’ve heard some say that counting Florida and Michigan would be changing the rules,” Clinton said. “I say that not counting Florida and Michigan is changing a central governing rule of this country – that whenever we can understand the clear intent of the voters, their votes should be counted.”
 
 
 
In fact, Clinton took her rhetoric up a notch, telling the Associated Press that she would take the Florida/Michigan cause all the way to this summer’s Democratic convention.
 
 
 
“Yes I will,” Clinton told the AP. “I will, because I feel very strongly about this.”
 
 
 
For many Democrats, that resolve represents their worst fears as the protracted and at times bitter nomination fight has left many Democrats afraid that Clinton’s determination, or some would say stubbornness in the face of insurmountable math, will pave the road to the White House for presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).
 
 
 
After Tuesday night’s Kentucky and Oregon primaries, only three contests are left on the calendar, but without the help of superdelegates, it appears neither candidate can win the required amount of pledged delegates to clinch the nomination.
 
 
 
Despite that, Obama has taken advantage of the momentum afforded him by numerous mathematical advantages to cautiously turn his attention to McCain and the general election fight.
 
 
 
Speaking in Iowa Tuesday night, Obama boasted that the nomination is “within reach.”