Analysis: Party insider Clinton now on the outs

In campaign appearances through south Florida, Clinton called out her own party's leadership, urging them to restore national convention delegates to Florida and Michigan. These delegates were stripped from the two states for jumping ahead in the line of primaries in violation of party rules that all the candidates, including Clinton, agreed to before she won the two January contests.

"We're asking the Democratic National Committee to make sure they count all of your votes," she said at a Miami rally Wednesday night.

In years past, the Clintons didn't have to ask the DNC for anything; they just told the committee what to do.

Her husband, after all, was the president. She worked in the White House. Her current campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, is an old Clinton friend and fundraiser who once ran the DNC.

Now, her campaign is pushing party leaders to fully count the delegates for the two disputed states, even though none of the candidates campaigned in the two states because of the rules violation and Obama even had his name taken off the Michigan ballot. Seating both groups in the way most favorable to her would still leave her trailing Barack Obama in the delegate count.

With every step Obama takes closer to the nomination, Clinton fades a little farther from the spotlight.

Seeking to reverse that, she has embraced the rhetoric of an outsider, calling for Florida and Michigan delegates to be counted, not for her sake she says, but for democracy. Her spokesman Howard Wolfson claimed Thursday that what's at stake is the "bedrock principle" of free government.

Clinton repeatedly compared the current situation of unseated delegates to the 2000 recount in Florida which was ended by the Supreme Court, giving George W. Bush the presidency.

"It is time for the Democratic Party to honor one of our core values, namely that we are the party that supports democracy," Clinton said.