Obama looks to go 'over the top'
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Heading into the Democrats' latest round of White House voting, Barack Obama is bidding to seal the deal against Hillary Clinton and unite the party for its larger battle to come against John McCain.
Obama campaigned in Oregon Sunday while the former first lady was set for a rally in Kentucky ahead of the two states' nominating contests on Tuesday, when the Illinois senator looks certain to clinch a majority of elected delegates.
Obama was not planning to spend the election night in either state, heading instead to Iowa -- the scene of his triumph in the very first Democratic faceoff in early January -- before a trip later in the week to Florida.
Roy Romer, a former governor of Colorado and ex-chairman of the Democratic National Committee who is now backing Obama, said the Illinois senator's delegate lead "can't be overcome."
"And the primaries that are left are going to divide about equally. So this race is over, and Obama is going to be the candidate," he said on CBS television.
According to one report, fundraisers for Obama and Clinton are tentatively joining forces to adopt a general election footing against McCain, the presumed Republican nominee.
The Washington Post quoted Mark Aronchick, a Philadelphia lawyer and top fundraiser for Clinton, as saying her supporters recognized the need to start preparing for November's presidential vote.
"Only if we do this right, and see this through in the right way, will there be a chance for a full, rapid and largely complete unification of the party," Aronchick said, while insisting he was not giving up on Clinton.
Obama's campaign says he needs just 17 more pledged delegates -- won through state contests -- to reach a majority of 1,627, not counting "superdelegates," party leaders who can vote for the nominee of their choice.
Including superdelegates, the winning line to clinch the Democratic nomination is 2,025. According to RealClearPolitics.com, Obama has 1,897 delegates in total to Clinton's 1,717.
Polls show Obama leading in Oregon, where 52 delegates are up for grabs, while Clinton is ahead in Kentucky, a state with 51 delegates that has a similar demographic to West Virginia, where she won by a landslide last week.
At a fundraiser in Portland Saturday night, Obama predicted victory in the northwestern state of Oregon and said he believed the delegates from the win would "put us over the top."
"We will be able to say we have won a majority," he said. "But we have a lot of work to do ahead of us."
The New York Times reported that Obama could proclaim this week, "without fear of contradiction, that he is now the Democratic nominee for president."
Clinton, however, is vowing to battle on until the end of the primary season. After Tuesday, there will be just three Democratic contests left -- Puerto Rico on June 1, and Montana and South Dakota on June 3.
"There is no standard under which Senator Obama will have secured the nomination on Tuesday night," Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said, pressing anew for disputed delegates from Florida and Michigan to be counted.
The Obama and McCain campaigns meanwhile pursued a war of words after President George W. Bush last week, in a speech to the Israeli parliament, implied the Democrats wanted to appease terrorists.
A furious Obama took the remark as an attack on his stated intention to talk to US foes such as Iran and Syria.
"That kind of leadership, I think, is what people are looking for," Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd said on Fox News Sunday, pointing to US engagement during the Cold War with the Soviet Union and Mao Zedong's China.
But Republican Jon Kyl, McCain's fellow senator from Arizona, said no US presidents had parleyed face to face with "state sponsors of terrorism," citing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
McCain took time out from the heated exchanges to poke fun at himself on the US comedy show "Saturday Night Live."
"I ask you, what should we be looking for in our next president? Certainly, someone who is very, very, very old," he joked. At 72 next January, the Republican would be the oldest president sworn in to a first term.
