A legislative committee consists of 9 Democrats and 8 Republicans. A delegation of 3 is to be selected to visit a small island republic. Complete parts (a) through (d) below. (a) How many different delegations are possible? The 3 delegates can be selected $\square$ different ways.

Step 1 ：The problem is asking for the number of ways to select 3 delegates from a group of 17 people (9 Democrats and 8 Republicans). This is a combination problem, as the order of selection does not matter.

Step 2 ：The formula for combinations is: \[C(n, k) = \frac{n!}{k!(n-k)!}\] where n is the total number of items, k is the number of items to choose, and '!' denotes factorial, which is the product of all positive integers up to that number.

Step 3 ：In this case, n = 17 (the total number of committee members) and k = 3 (the number of delegates to be selected).

Step 4 ：Substituting the values into the formula, we get \[C(17, 3) = \frac{17!}{3!(17-3)!}\]

Step 5 ：Solving the above expression, we find that there are 680 different ways to select the 3 delegates.

Step 6 ：Final Answer: The 3 delegates can be selected \(\boxed{680}\) different ways.