Democrats searched for a compromise Saturday to seat disputed delegations from Michigan and Florida at this summer’s party convention and clear the way for a quick end to the marathon struggle between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The challenge is to “come together at the end of the day and be united,” Howard Dean, the party chairman, told members of the convention’s Rules and Bylaws Committee gathered at a hotel across town from the White House.

Obama is a mere 42 delegates short of the 2,026 needed to clinch the nomination, in the Associated Press tally, and appears on track to wrap up the party prize in the coming days.

Clinton trails by about 200 delegates. She has pressed to have the entire Michigan and Florida delegations seated, both to narrow the gap and to buttress her claim that she has outpolled her rival in the popular vote in the primaries and caucuses.

Several hundred protesters maintained a noisy but peaceful presence on the sidewalk outside the hotel where party activists met.

Beverly Battelle Weeks, 56, said she got up before dawn to make the drive from got up before 4 a.m. to drive up from Richmond, Va. for the rally. She carried a black umbrella on which she had pasted letters spelling out “Count All Votes.”

“The right thing to do is to seat all the delegates. Anything less is not democratic,” she said.

Michigan and Florida both held primaries earlier in the winter than party rules allowed, resulting in the disqualification of their delegates.

Alexis Herman, who heads the rules committee, called that the “maximum penalty,” an understatement given the controversy it has caused in the epic battle between a woman and a black man for the nomination.

In all, there were 368 delegates in limbo, 211 from Florida and 157 from Michigan.

The most widely discussed compromise envisioned granting seats to all those delegates, but giving each one-half a vote. That would satisfy Clinton’s call for all to be seated without jeopardizing Obama’s lead.

Clinton campaigned in Puerto Rico as the committee met, hoping for a strong showing in Sunday’s primary. Obama was in South Dakota, one of two states holding elections on Tuesday, the final day on the primary calendar. Montana is the other.

Both candidates were amply represented around the hearing table, with numerous supporters holding seats on the committee.

Clinton won the Michigan primary Jan. 15 and the Florida vote two weeks later after all the candidates agreed not to campaign in either state.

At the time, she said the vote did not matter. But once she fell behind Obama in the delegate competition, her position shifted.

“It’s important to send the right signals to them and the people living in those states that we Democrats value those states, value those voters and want them as full partners in a general election in assembling 270 electoral votes,” said Clinton strategist Harold Ickes, a member of the rules committee.

While Obama initially showed no enthusiasm for seating the two delegations, he has shown more flexibility in recent weeks _ as long as any compromise left his status as front-runner unchanged.

“We have both fought hard throughout the country, both of us, for delegates and the fact that we’re willing to essentially cede her delegates we do not think is an insignificant gesture on our part,” Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said. “But we’re willing to do this in the interest of trying to bring this to a close so we can focus on the general election.”

Members of the rules committee discussed their options over a lengthy dinner Friday night with Dean that lasted until 2 a.m. Saturday. People who attended said no deals were reached, although there was a widespread sentiment they should try to come up with some resolution.

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Associated Press reporter Stephen Manning contributed to this report.