OBAMA AGREES TO TWO DEBATES, CLINTON WANTS FIVE

Senator Obama of Illinois is meeting Senator Clinton’s offer of five debates in the next month with a counter-offer of two showdowns between the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination.” We’ll have some debates,” Mr. Obama said yesterday, according to the Associated Press, but he added that he needed to stay on the campaign trail to overcome the fact that Mrs. Clinton is better known. “I’ve got to spend time with voters,” he said.

A spokesman for Mr. Obama said he would participate in a debate NBC news has offered to sponsor in Cleveland on February 26 and in another exchange in Texas prior to the March 4 primary there.

GAY REPUBLICANS HAIL ROMNEY EXIT

Gay Republicans angry over Mitt Romney’s opposition to gay marriage in Massachusetts celebrated yesterday as Mr. Romney pulled the plug on his presidential campaign.

“Today is a great day for the Republican Party. Nominating a candidate like Mitt Romney would have been a recipe for disaster in November and would have ensured a White House victory by the Democrats,” the president of the Log Cabin Republicans, Patrick Sammon, said. “Log Cabin is proud to have played an important role in sparing the Party from a nominee like Mitt Romney.”

In a 1994 Senate bid, Mr. Romney courted the gay community, but as he prepared to run for president he took a different tack, leading an effort to overturn a court ruling permitting gay marriage.

CHELSEA CLINTON, OBAMAS SQUARE OFF IN NEBRAKSA

Chelsea Clinton and Mr. Obama both visited Nebraska yesterday in advance of the state’s Saturday caucuses. The former first daughter campaigned for her mother at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, taking questions from students for almost an hour. The Associated Press reported that she praised her mother for offering detailed plans of how she would pay for programs she has proposed.

A bit later in the day, the Illinois senator spoke to a rally of about 10,000 in Omaha, the AP said. Mr. Obama’s wife, Michelle, is to visit the state on Friday.

BRAZILE MAY BOLT DEMOCRATIC PARTY IF SUPERDELEGATES PREVAIL

A member of the Democratic National Committee who managed Vice President Gore’s presidential bid in 2000, Donna Brazile, is threatening to leave the party if so-called superdelegates determine the outcome of the nominating contest between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama. “If 795 of my colleagues decide this election, I will quit the Democratic Party. I feel very strongly about this,” Ms. Brazile said Wednesday on CNN, where she is a commentator.

Under Democratic Party rules, members of Congress, governors, and national committee members like Ms. Brazile serve as unpledged delegates at the party’s convention and could pick the nominee if neither candidate wins enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination.

LIEBERMAN NOT WELCOME AT DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION

Senator Lieberman of Connecticut is likely to lose his status as a superdelegate at August’s Democratic Convention, a liberal Web site, Firedoglake.com, reported. Mr. Lieberman, who ran for reelection in 2006 as an independent after losing the Democratic primary, has endorsed the likely Republican nominee, Senator McCain of Arizona. As a result, he will be denied membership in the Connecticut delegation under a rule instituted in 2004 after a Democratic senator, Zell Miller of Georgia, endorsed President Bush.