"Clinton did not always feel so strongly. In the early days of the campaign she said Michigan would not count.

"It's clear," Clinton told New Hampshire Public Radio in the fall, "this election [Michigan is] having is not going to count for anything. I personally did not think it made any difference whether or not my name was on the ballot." " ABC News.

The article goes on to say:

"After Tuesday's primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, Obama gained a majority of the available pledged delegates, a symbolic milestone that may influence many of the undecided superdelegates both candidates need to secure the nomination.

ABC News has crunched the numbers and even with Michigan and Florida included Obama has a significant lead in delegates.

Related
McCain Veepstakes: Who Will Win the Prize?Obama Wins Ore., Looks to General ElectionWATCH: Kennedy: A Beacon for the Nation"In the total universe of delegates, there are 311 outstanding: 217 of those are as of yet uncommitted superdelegates, 94 are thus far unallocated pledged delegates from last night's contest in Oregon and the upcoming three contests in Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Montana," wrote David Chalian, ABC News political director.

Clinton needs 84 percent of all the remaining delegates -- pledged and superdelegates -- to hit 2,026, the magic number needed to lock up the nomination.

Obama needs just 23 percent of all the remaining delegates to hit 2,026. With the current rules for delegate math against her, Clinton has pushed to increase the overall delegate total needed to win up to 2,210, or to instead consider using the popular vote as a metric.


Obama leads in the popular vote if Michigan and Florida are excluded from the count. He also leads in popular votes if Florida is added.

Clinton, however, has more popular votes if all the states, including Michigan and Florida, are included in the total.

But Obama did not campaign in Michigan and his name was removed from the ballot before the race.

The Democratic Party would not be convening a meeting to resolve the issue if not for Clinton, said ABC News consultant Matthew Dowd.

"The DNC [Democratic National Committee] is considering changing the rules, and they wouldn't be changing the rules unless she wanted them to meet and discuss it. She obviously wants to see the rules changed. Her staff should have set up a campaign that worked within the confines of the current rules," he said. "It is as if Barack Obama is on the 99-yard line and in the final moments of the game Clinton wants the football field extended from 100 to 120 yards." "

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The essence of the business is that for a variety of reasons, Hillary Clinton is trying to get the DNC to change the rules she previously agreed to, primarily because she does not like the score. She offers terrific explanations as to why this is a good thing, but if she were operating on such deep, true, American principles, she might have said something at the time, when losing the selection process was not obvious. At least, that would have seemed more consistent.


A