CLINTON MAKES LAST-DITCH BID FOR MICHIGAN RE-VOTE

In a hastily-scheduled campaign stop in Detroit, Senator Clinton urged Senator Obama to endorse a plan to allow a new Democratic primary in Michigan. “Senator Obama speaks passionately on the campaign trail about empowering the American people,” Mrs. Clinton said, according to the Associated Press. “Today, I am asking him to match those words with actions.”

Mr. Obama’s campaign has raised a series of concerns about the logistics, fairness, and legality of the new primary, which would make up for a January 15 election which took place earlier than permitted under Democratic National Committee rules. Mrs. Clinton won that handily, but Mr. Obama had taken his name off the ballot in a sign of solidarity with the party’s sanctions stripping the state of all its delegates.

A lawyer for Mr. Obama’s campaign, Robert Bauer, said the most legally nettlesome provision could be the state’s plan to exclude from the new vote all those who voted in the Republican primary in January, which was open to all voters … “The proposal offers a re-run for the state but not for all the voters. The state will have to assert an interest sufficient to justify this infringement on the voting rights of its citizens,” the attorney wrote in an e-mail memo to reporters. “Since any Republican or Independent who did not vote in January in the Republican primary is fully free to participate in the June primary, the effect of the proposal is to enfranchise a class of Republicans while disenfranchising a class of Democrats — the ones who chose to vote in the Republican primary when they correctly understood that the Democratic contest was meaningless.”

FLORIDA LEGISLATORS PROPOSE DELEGATE ALLOCATION

Two Florida state senators are putting forward a new plan to allocate Florida’s delegates without the need for a new vote. The legislators, Steven Geller and Jeremy Ring, urged that at least half of the delegates be assigned based on the outcome of the January 29 primary, in which Senator Clinton defeated Senator Obama, 50% to 33%. Messrs. Geller and Ring said the remaining delegates could either be split evenly, or in accordance with the national popular vote or delegate tally.

Other prominent Democrats quickly dismissed the plan, saying that Florida’s delegates should track Florida’s votes and not those of other states.

POLLS SHOW CLINTON, McCAIN GAINING GROUND

The flap over incendiary comments by Senator Obama’s pastor seems to be taking a toll on his lead over Senator Clinton in national polls of Democratic-leaning voters. In the latest Gallup tracking poll, Mrs. Clinton led Mr. Obama, 49% to 42%, the first significant lead she has held over him in more than a month. The drawn-out nomination fight between the two Democrats appears to be working to the advantage of the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator McCain. A Reuters/Zogby poll showed him leading Mrs. Clinton by 8% and Mr. Obama by 6%. Other polls still showed the Democrats in front, but with their margin dwindling.

HUCKABEE OFFERS DEFENSE OF OBAMA’S MINISTER

A Baptist preacher who mounted a strong bid for the Republican nomination this year, Michael Huckabee, is offering a defense of sorts for fiery statements made by Senator Obama’s preacher, Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr.

“I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack,” the former Arkansas governor said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” yesterday. “We’ve got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, ‘You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus.’ And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment … I may have had a more, more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.”

Mr. Huckabee also made clear that he disagreed with the substance of Rev. Wright’s remarks. “Those were outrageous statements, and nobody can defend the content of them,” he said.