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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa might have heard two-thirds of delegates in the Time Warner Cable Arena approve changes to the Democratic Party platform early in the proceedings Wednesday night. But some delegates who were on the floor weren’t so sure he got the count right.

“I think it failed,” said Don Kershner, a delegate from Boise who said it sounded to him — sitting in the opposite end of the arena from the speaker’s platform — that at least 50% of delegates opposed the changes. Kershner was one of the only delegates from Idaho in the arena when the changes were made — itself a problem, he said. But he said he thought the party should have left well enough alone.

“They shouldn’t have messed with it,” said Kershner, wearing a white cowboy hat supporting the Boise State Broncos. “It’s clearly a dividing subject. We don’t want to drive a wedge into the party.”

PHOTOS: Scenes from the DNC

The drama occurred in the first moments of the convention proceedings Wednesday night, when Democratic officials reinserted language back into the official platform invoking God and affirming the role of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

Both passages had been in the 2008 version of the Democratic platform, but were removed in the drafting of this year’s edition.

President Obama personally had a hand in getting the language reinstated.

A Democratic official says the president was unhappy about the platform changes when he heard about them.

He told his staff to convey his opposition right away, which set the wheels in motion to reinstate.

On the “God” part, the official said, his response to hearing it was, “Why was it changed in the first place?”

But putting the passages back in the platform — a move Democratic officials appeared to think would go smoothly — caused loud objections in the convention hall.

Terri Holland was one of the people who voted against the amendments introduced Wednesday night. The New Mexico delegate from Albuquerque said she thought that Democrats had made the changes “to kow-tow to the religious right,” something the party should never do.

“I don’t think it has a business in anybody’s platform,” she said, about the part of the amendment that referred to giving “everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.”

Holland agreed that the first two votes Villaraigosa took did not get two-thirds approval. By the third time around, though, she said that her fellow “no” voters had given up the fight.

PHOTOS: Protests of the DNC

She and fellow delegate Richard Cooley said the proceedings were haphazard, and that the platform should have taken a paper ballot vote. Neither were even aware the changes would be made until Villaraigosa got up on the podium and started speaking.

“We’re Democrats, we love that stuff,” Holland said, about paper ballots.

Cooley added that Democrats had learned the importance of proper vote-taking in the Bush-Gore election in 2000. They shouldn’t take any vote for granted, he said, especially on such a divisive issue.

“We all have our own God,” he said.

Still, some delegates, including Charu Khopkar, a California delegate from Long Beach, said they thought Villaraigosa got the count right. Khopkar said he admired Villaraigosa for taking the time to ask three times for a vote, even if it’s not an issue that he cares deeply about one way or another.

“Myself, I am not a believer,” he said. “But I think it’s a perfectly appropriate part of the platform.”

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alana.semuels@latimes.com

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christi.parsons@latimes.com

SAN DIEGO — Republican presidential candidates renewed their criticism of President Obama’s healthcare program Monday in a double-barreled assault from both coasts.

Standing before a “Repeal and Replace Obamacare” banner at a medical device manufacturer in San Diego as he opened a campaign swing in the state, Mitt Romney called the president’s policies “an attack on free enterprise, an attack on economic freedom unlike anything we have ever seen before.”

“We’ve got to make sure that we replace President Obama with someone who truly understands what it is that makes America’s economy work,” Romney said.

Decrying a tax on medical devices that is a component of the healthcare law, he argued that the Obama administration was thwarting the endeavors of entrepreneurs like NuVasive’s chief executive “tax by tax, regulator by regulator, regulation by regulation.”

“Washington is crushing the dreams, and crushing the dreamers. We can’t let it happen,” he said.

Rick Santorum, who has doggedly criticized the healthcare program his rival Romney pushed as Massachusetts governor as “the blueprint” for Obama’s law, made an unannounced stop outside the Supreme Court, where the first day of arguments were being held in a challenge to the law.

He called for its repeal and underscored what he says is a key argument for his candidacy — that he would be a stronger adversary against Obama in November.

“There’s only one candidate who has a chance of winning the Republican nomination, who can make this [Obama’s healthcare law] the central issue, a winning issue for winning the presidency back, and that’s Rick Santorum,” the former senator from Pennsylvania said. “The worst person to make that case is Mitt Romney.”

Later, in an interview on CNN, Santorum chided Romney for campaigning in California. “The whole world is watching what’s going on here in Washington,” he said. “Mitt Romney is 3,000 miles away. He should be here.”

Romney, who has defended his Massachusetts healthcare mandate as an appropriate statewide approach, brushed aside Santorum’s criticism by asserting that he was “not going to worry too much about what Rick is saying these days.”

Romney’s speech at NuVasive, whose chief executive, Alexis V. Lukianov, is an avowed critic of the Obama healthcare law, was a brief diversion from his main objective in California: raising money.

Over two days, he plans to hold five fundraisers headlined by leading figures in the state Republican establishment: 2010 gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, real estate mogul Donald Bren and former Gov. Pete Wilson.

Alex Spanos, owner of the San Diego Chargers, is hosting one of the fundraisers at his Villa Angelica mansion in Stockton. Dean Spanos, Alex’s son and president of the Chargers, is leading another fundraiser at the U.S. Grant hotel in San Diego.

His star-studded political events stood in contrast to those of Santorum, who will visit California later this week. While donors were asked to contribute as much as $25,000 at Romney’s events, Santorum supporters were asked for a maximum of $2,500. Santorum’s admirers may gain entree for as little as $125 at a dessert reception Thursday at the Alamo home of Ubokia.com Chief Executive Mark Pine. Hosts include former Rep. Bill Baker and tea party activist Bridget Melson.

Though Romney has built what his campaign views as an insurmountable lead in the Republican delegate count, his rivals have refused to step aside — lending greater importance to California’s June 5 primary, when 172 delegates will be at stake.

“I need you guys to get ready, to organize your effort, to get your friends to vote, to collect some money, to get campaign contributions,” Romney said in San Diego on Monday. “We’ve got a ways to go.”

A new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll showed Romney drawing the support of 42% of registered Republican voters. Santorum trailed him by 19 percentage points, with Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul a distant third and fourth.

Gingrich and Santorum acknowledged Monday that they were unlikely to pass Romney in delegates through the remaining primaries, but they said the race for the nomination would go to the party convention in August.

“If he can get to 1,144, he’s the nominee. But if he can’t get to 1,144 on the 26th of June, the last primary, then it is going to be a wide-open electronic convention for 60 days of talking among the American people,” Gingrich said on CNN.

Santorum, speaking on the same program, said the likelihood was that no candidate would accumulate enough delegates by the time the voting contests concluded.

“This race is going to — is [in] all likelihood going to go to the convention,” he said.

—

maeve.reston@latimes.com

seema.mehta@latimes.com

Reston reported from San Diego and Mehta from Los Angeles. Ian Duncan in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

It’s become predictable in this tempestuous campaign season: First Lady Michelle Obama, who has chosen fighting childhood obesity as her favorite cause, utters something that seems judgmental about healthy eating, and conservatives pounce. (Nor is her husband immune to criticism for the ruckus he causes when he steps out for a bite.)

The pattern repeated itself Tuesday, as the right-leaning chattering classes reacted to an exchange Obama had with Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Gabrielle Douglas when the two appeared Monday on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”

Obama had already done her segment with Leno, discussing how she and her husband messed up, then redeemed, their “kiss cam” moment at a recent basketball game, and how her Secret Service detail reacted when U.S. Olympic weightlifter Elena Pirozhkova hoisted her during the London Games. (“Fortunately, they didn’t take her down,” said the first lady.)

Leno asked her to stick around for his visit with Douglas, and Obama happily obliged.

When Leno asked about whether the teensy athlete, who generally eats a restrictive, protein-heavy diet, splurged after winning her gold medal for best individual all-around gymnast, Obama’s teasing response provoked predictable criticism. “You train your whole life, you win. How did you celebrate and what did you do?” Leno asked Douglas.

Douglas, who looked adorable in a black leather jacket, said she wasn’t able to celebrate right away because she had team finals coming up. “But after the competition,” she said, “I splurged on an Egg McMuffin at McDonalds.”

“Egg McMuffin?” Leno asked brightly.

Obama leaned toward Douglas. “Yeah, Gabby, don’t encourage him. I’m sure it was on a whole wheat McMuffin.”

“Oh, on a whole wheat bun,” Leno said. “So an Egg McMuffin, very good.”

Obama pretended to chastise the gymnast: “You’re setting me back, Gabby.”

“Sorry!” Douglas replied.

The spin machinery sprang into action: “Michelle Obama Lectures Gold Medal Gymnast about Eating One Egg McMuffin,” said the headline on a blog post on Town Hall, the conservative website.

Calling her a “food cop,” Reason’s website went with “Michelle Obama Makes Gabby Douglas apologize for Celebrating her Olympic Gold Medals with an Egg McMuffin.”

Many outlets noted that an Egg McMuffin packs a mere 300 calories and is hardly a serious arterial threat, particularly as a splurge.

If the conservative reaction seems a little over the top, it should probably be noted that Obama’s anti-obesity campaign has also struck fear into the heart of the most powerful man in the free world, already known for his healthy eating habits. Monday morning, President Obama told supporters in Council Bluffs, Iowa, that he was happy to be back in the state that gave him his first important victory in the 2008 presidential campaign.

“I think I’m going to end at the state fair,” he told the crowd, referring to every presidential candidate’s obligatory stop at Iowa’s signal summer event, where crowds delight in hideously caloric fried foods and a refrigerated life-size bovine sculpture.

“Michelle has told me I cannot have a fried Twinkie,” said the president. “But I will be checking out the butter cow, and I understand this year there’s a chocolate moose. So I’m going to have to take a look at that if I can.”

He did avoid the Twinkies, but it cannot be said that he opted for a health-food alternative. He sampled pork chops — though not on a stick, an Iowa favorite — and washed them down with a beer.

Later, according to the Des Moines Register, Republican Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley set off another Obama food controversy when he tweeted that the president’s visit to the fair’s popular beer tent had cost its proprietor thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

“How does PresO justify havin secret service shut down the bud tent @ the state fair dn the owner told me he loses 50,000 n 1 nite,” tweeted Iowa’s senior senator.

The ticked-off proprietor, a Republican who does not plan to vote for Obama, told the Register that his losses were more like $25,000, which would have come from fairgoers attending a concert of the rock cover band Hairball on an adjacent stage. The disgruntled owner, Mike Cunningham II, told the Register’s Kyle Munson, “I was in a position to make a campaign donation against my will.”

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President Obama is planning to speak in the “near future” on U.S. policy in the Mideast, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday.

“It’s a speech to a broader audience than just the Arab world,” Carney said at his televised briefing. He didn’t specify when or where the president will speak, but said it will be in “the relatively near future.”

Obama is scheduled to begin a five-day European trip May 23.

The speech will come as the United States faces a slew of issues in the Middle East, including pro-democracy uprisings in several countries, a stalled Mideast peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, and the ongoing issue of nuclear proliferation and Iran.

The speech also will come within weeks of the U.S. raid in Pakistan during which terrorist leader Osama bin Laden was killed. The raid has raised questions from some about the future of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, which the West invaded seeking to end the Taliban state that was sheltering terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The raid has also raised questions about what Pakistan leaders knew about Bin Laden and whether the founder of Al Qaeda was being protected by elements of the Pakistani intelligence community.

Obama is scheduled to meet next week with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, a strong U.S. ally, and with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been invited to address Congress. Efforts to bring peace between Netanyahu’s government and the Palestinians have bogged down despite early U.S. efforts. Complicating that issue is the apparent reconciliation between Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian National Authority, and Hamas, which controls Gaza, the other part of the Palestinian entity. Israel and the United States view Hamas as a terrorist group.

In 2009, Obama visited Cairo in what was billed as an overture to the Islamic world, still smarting from the Bush years and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama mainly spoke of the positive power of Islam as a world force.

Since then, much of the Arab world has been shattered by ongoing pro-democracy revolutions and, in some cases, civil wars and extensive state repression.

In some countries, notably Syria and Libya, where the United States has had long-term questions about the rulers, the United States strongly condemned the use of force against citizens and took even more severe actions. The Obama administration helped engineer a United Nations resolution that has imposed a no-fly zone on Libya, which is being enforced by NATO. The Obama administration has also spoken out forcefully against Syria’s violence against its citizens.

Though it has condemned state violence, the Obama administration has been less forceful with some nations with friendlier governments, such as Yemen and Bahrain, and it was slow to condemn Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, who was eventually deposed by the military after extensive demonstrations.

Michael.muskal@latimes.com

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