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Michigan Delegation Plans to Fight On

As talks of a possible Clinton concession swirled Monday, Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.) said that the Michigan Congressional delegation plans to contest the national party’s decision over the weekend awarding the state’s delegates a half-vote at the party’s convention.

Kilpatrick said the delegation plans to submit a document to the Democratic National Committee’s Credentials Committee within two and a half weeks demanding that all of Michigan’s delegates get a full vote at the convention in August.

Still, she conceded, “The numbers don’t look like Sen. Clinton can be nominated. We want to win in November. November is the prize … I think the next 48 hours are going to be critical.”

Clinton’s spokesmen denied all talk of concession on Monday.

Kilpatrick is one of three Michigan lawmakers, all of them superdelegates — the others are Rep. Dale Kildee (D) and Sen. Carl Levin (D) — who remain undecided in the presidential race between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.).

Kilpatrick said Clinton backers were the “only vocal people” working with the delegation to contest Saturday’s decision by the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee to give a half-vote each to the delegate.

At that meeting, the Rules panel approved deals that awarded Clinton a net of 24 delegates from Michigan and Florida by giving each delegate half a vote at the convention, ending months of chaos over whether the party would seat the delegates. But the Clinton camp has reserved its right to appeal that decision to the Credentials Committee.

The party had originally barred the delegates because those states had ignored party rules and held their primaries earlier than allowed. Clinton and Obama originally supported that decision.

But as Clinton’s hopes for the nomination have dwindled, her calls for fully counting those states’ votes have increased.

Following Saturday’s decision, Kilpatrick issued a joint statement with Levin indicating that they remain confident that they “will achieve our goal in the coming weeks, which is to have our full delegation seated with full voting rights at the convention.”

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