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Clinton pressures Obama to rerun Michigan primary

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton holds a ''Solutions for America'' event in Detroit, Michigan, on Wednesday. PHOTO: AFP

With plans for new primaries in Florida and Michigan in limbo, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton challenged Senator Barack Obama on Wednesday to accept at least a new contest in Michigan, arguing that he should match his "words with action" because a civil rights principle was at stake.

Clinton added a quick stop at a union hall to throw down a gauntlet before Obama in hopes of pressuring him to support a proposed June 3 primary in Michigan, where some lawmakers describe his resistance as a key obstacle to a revote.

In hopes of bolstering the Michigan plan, two Clinton allies, governors Jon Corzine of New Jersey and Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania, released a letter saying they had lined up 10 guarantors who would pledge up to US$12 million to cover the estimated costs of rerunning the primary.

Clinton framed her remarks in the context of voting rights, a day after Obama, of Illinois, delivered a speech about race in the US that drew approving reviews from his supporters and many political analysts. Her comments in Detroit, in turn, drew cheers and applause from an ethnically diverse crowd of 250.

"It is a bedrock American principle that we are all equal in the voting booth," said Clinton, of New York. "It has been a long struggle to get to the point where barriers have been knocked down and doors opened."

Before Clinton spoke, the Obama campaign issued a memorandum from one of its campaign lawyers, Robert Bauer, who raised several questions about a Michigan do-over.

"No one disputes that the election will have to be hurriedly prepared," he wrote. "And it is further accepted that it is, in material respects, unprecedented in conception and proposed structure."

Clinton wants the Michigan do-over as a matter of political survival to close the delegate gap with Obama.

The Obama campaign has resisted and argued that Clinton is trying to change Democratic Party rules to save her candidacy.
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