WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton's last-ditch hopes of winning the Democratic nomination go to an obscure party committee Saturday -- and the group appears headed toward a deal that still would leave Clinton short of overtaking Barack Obama.

The Democratic Party's Rules and Bylaws Committee convenes in Washington, D.C., to decide how much to penalize the Florida and Michigan delegations for holding their primaries too early, and Clinton's camp is banking on a favorable ruling to throw her a lifeline in her fight with Obama.

But Clinton's chances suffered a setback Wednesday when Democratic National Committee lawyers said they believe the committee can seat only half the 368 delegates in question as part of the penalty for jumping the line -- a finding Clinton's team disputed sharply.

Either way, the committee appears headed toward a compromise that would do just that -- seat half of the delegates -- though the split between Clinton and Obama remained unclear, insiders said. The committee could decide to send half the delegates to the party convention in August, or send all the delegates but give each only half a vote.

Whatever the committee decides, analysts say they believe it is unlikely to significantly improve Clinton's chances of wresting the nomination from Obama, who many Democrats already regard as the nominee-in-waiting.

"Nobody believes that anything is going to happen that's going to help her case dramatically," said Stu Rothenberg, an independent political analyst in Washington. "What matters is a fundamental reassessment of the race, and nobody thinks that's going to happen."

The stakes are high for Clinton on Saturday, and her team Wednesday laid down a hard-line position: seat all 368 delegates or risk writing off those critical states in the fall.

Clinton supporters say seating all the delegates would allow her to cut Obama's 200-delegate lead in half and overtake him after the results from Sunday's Puerto Rico primary. That would allow her to buy time to go back to superdelegates with the argument that she's the one who can beat John McCain, even though that argument hasn't prevented a steady drip of superdelegates to Obama.

Clinton's campaign Wednesday stepped up its electability argument, sending superdelegates an 11-page analysis noting that neither she nor Obama will have a majority of delegates after the final primaries on June 3.

"When the primaries are finished, I expect to lead in the popular vote and in delegates earned through primaries," Clinton wrote. "Ultimately, the point of our primary process is to pick the strongest nominee."

Clinton is likely to achieve at least one thing at the Saturday meeting -- get a compromise that increases the "magic number" needed for victory, now set at 2,026 delegates. That number doesn't include the Michigan and Florida delegates and would grow to 2,118 if half of them are restored.

Obama is fewer than 50 delegates away from the 2,026 benchmark, and his campaign said it would support a compromise to give Clinton more disputed delegates than Obama -- she led the vote in both states -- but not too many more. Obama's campaign also denied reports that he would unveil a bevy of superdelegates around the time of the last primaries next week to reach the 2,026 figure.

Clinton backers said Saturday's meeting was important to giving her more time to make the case.