Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton urged supporters Monday to unite behind her Democratic rival, and her aides worked with Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign to avoid a divisive roll-call vote on the convention floor.
But efforts for a show of unity before the New York senator makes her headline speech in prime time tonight were being met with fierce opposition.
Clinton delegates circulated petitions on the floor of the Democratic National Convention on Monday night, hoping to stave off a plan to hold the roll call at delegate breakfasts.
The move being worked out between the campaigns would work in two parts: Delegates would cast votes at their hotels Wednesday morning; that night at the Pepsi Center convention site, the roll-call process would rely on the morning votes, the delegates said.
The Obama campaign denied that there would be a change.
“This is not true,” Jennifer Backus, a senior adviser, said in an e-mail in response to a question about the negotiations for the roll-call change.
Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette, a former state co-chair for Clinton, said she knows the camps are in talks.
“My view is we need to come together as a party,” DeGette said. “I admire Hillary Clinton greatly, but I think it would be divisive to have a vote on the floor. We need to have a unanimous vote.”
The evening event would first call on the delegation from Illinois and then move to New York. After New York delegates applaud Clinton’s historic candidacy, a motion would be made to accept the votes cast at breakfast.
Clinton delegates circulating the petitions opposed the move.
Kelly Jacobs, a die-hard Clinton supporter from Hernando, Miss., said the Clinton backers need 800 signatures to secure a convention-hall vote.
Anything less than a public vote from the floor, Jacobs said, would be an insult to her candidate.
“I could have voted from home,” Jacobs said. “She is our captain. We don’t want to see her disrespected.”
The discussions come after a long summer in which Clinton delegates have argued for a chance to be heard during the convention. The party wants unity, and the announcement made by Obama and Clinton last week that a floor vote would occur was meant to provide that opportunity.
While full details of Wednesday night aren’t yet known, the convention will open with a nominating speech for Hillary Clinton and remarks from two supporting speakers, a convention organizer said. The trio will be followed by a nominating speech and three supporting speakers for Sen. Barack Obama.
A roll-call vote of some type will be held, though the organizer would not confirm whether two states or 56 states and territories would be called.
At events in Denver earlier Monday, Clinton urged people to support Obama and slammed recent John McCain campaign ads aimed at angering her supporters because of Obama’s vice presidential choice.
“I, Hillary Clinton, do not approve that message,” she said during her first public remarks in Denver at a breakfast for the New York delegation. “The Democratic Party is like a family. We were not all on the same side as Democrats, but we are now.”
At the Hispanic caucus later Monday, Clinton encouraged Latino voters who had overwhelmingly supported her to get behind Obama.
“I want those of you who supported me to work just as hard for Barack Obama as you worked for me,” she said.
On Sunday, Clinton said she was going to release her delegates — a symbolic and legal gesture which means that delegates from 10 states pledged to her could be free from their legal obligation to vote for her. Lawyers in several of those states, including California, said they were looking into whether that was possible.
At a campaign stop in Moline, Ill., Obama addressed the outreach efforts.
“There are going to be some of Sen. Clinton’s supporters we have to work hard to persuade to come on board. That’s not surprising,” he said.
Obama declined to answer questions about the vetting process and how seriously he considered Clinton as a running mate
While he said Clinton “would’ve been on anyone’s short list,” when asked if she was on Obama’s, he didn’t say yes or no. Instead, he said: “I think you can make that conclusion.”
Denver Post staff writers Elizabeth Aguilera and Karen E. Crummy and MediaNews Group reporter Gene Maddaus contributed to this report.
