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Obama Shifts Campaign Focus to General Election

Associated Press

May 17, 2008 9:55 p.m.

EUGENE, Ore. -- After sharpening his attacks on Republican Sen. John McCain, Sen. Barack Obama is ready to lay a symbolic claim to the Democratic presidential nomination following the next round of primaries.

Tuesday's primaries in Oregon and Kentucky should leave Sen. Obama less than 100 delegates away from reaching the total 2,026 needed to secure his party's nomination after an epic battle with Sen. Hillary Clinton.

After picking up delegates in Nevada, Kansas and Maryland this weekend, Sen. Obama's delegate total is 1,907, compared with Clinton's 1,718. In Nevada, Sen. Obama stole a delegate from Sen. Clinton by drawing more supporters at the state Democratic convention Saturday. In Maryland, he won a superdelegate, elected officials and party leaders who are automatic delegates to the national convention due to their positions.

Sen. Obama was campaigning over the weekend in Oregon, where polls show him with a comfortable lead. Sen. Clinton has a strong lead in polls in Kentucky, where she plans to campaign through Tuesday. At stake are 51 delegates in Kentucky and 52 in Oregon.

Sen. Obama has built a solid lead in Democratic National Convention delegates over Sen. Clinton, and is now working overtime to cast an image of inevitability to his campaign for the nomination.

Sen. Obama's aides announced that he planned to hold a rally on primary night Tuesday in Iowa, where his solid win in January's leadoff caucuses propelled him to his status as the front-runner. The rally is the Obama campaign's latest effort to shift attention to the November election, even though Sen. Clinton continues to maintain a full campaign schedule in primary states.

In recent days, he has spent more time focused on his differences with certain Republican nominee Sen. McCain than sparring with Sen. Clinton.

On Friday, Sen. Obama lumped Sen. McCain in with the unpopular Bush administration for advancing a "naive and irresponsible" foreign policy, attempting to turn the tables in a presidential election battle in which his own national security credentials have been challenged.

He criticized Sen. McCain a day after accusing President George W. Bush of calling him an appeaser during a speech to the Israeli parliament in which Mr. Bush criticized those who believe in negotiating with "terrorists and radicals." The White House denied the comments were aimed at Sen. Obama, but Sen. McCain took the opportunity to jump into the fray, accusing the Illinois senator of naivete and saying he should explain to voters why he is willing to talk with rogue leaders.

Sen. Obama has said as president he would be willing to personally meet with leaders from Iran and other regimes the U.S. has deemed rogue -- drawing fire from Republicans and his Democratic rival Clinton.

But in recent days, Sen. Clinton has toned down her attacks on Sen. Obama. She unveiled new television campaign ads in Oregon and Kentucky, which focus on economic issues and avoid criticizing Sen. Obama directly.

Sen. Clinton, whose hopes are fading to become the first female U.S. president, has insisted she is staying in the race until the last primaries on June 3 in Montana and South Dakota, even though her finances are dwindling and the delegate math is overwhelmingly stacked against her.

Sen. Obama's decision to hold a rally in Iowa underscored his shift to a general election strategy. His aides described Iowa "as a critical general election state that Democrats must win in November."

Iowa has been a swing state in recent elections. Democrat Al Gore narrowly carried the state in 2000, and President George W. Bush collected the state's seven electoral votes by just over 10,000 votes in 2004. Since that time, however, Democrats have built a substantial edge in registered voters, and turnout in the January precinct caucuses was at record levels.

Sen. Obama is also heading to Florida in the upcoming week -- a key battleground state where he has not yet campaigned.

The Democratic National Committee stripped Florida of its delegates as punishment for moving up its primary to January, earlier than allowed by party rules.

Sen. Clinton, who did not campaign in the state either, won the Florida primary. She and Sen. Obama have been at odds over seating the state's delegation at the national convention in Denver in August.

Clinton Presses On in Kentucky

Sen. Clinton began a multiday swing Saturday through Kentucky, where the senator is hoping for a big win. The state's demographics resemble neighboring West Virginia, which gave her a much-needed victory last week.

Both states are overwhelmingly white, rural and have more residents below the poverty line and without college degrees than the national average -- the kind of working-class voters that have helped boost Clinton to victory in other states.

"There are some people who have been saying for months that this is over, and every time they say it, the voters come back and say, "Oh no it's not, we're not ready for it to be over,'" Sen. Clinton told supporters as she stood on a stage in front of a stack of whiskey barrels at the famous distillery in Loretto where its first bottle of bourbon whiskey was created in the 1950s.

"You don't quit on people and you don't quit until you finish what you started, and you don't quit on America," she said.

At another stop in Kentucky on Saturday, Sen. Clinton targeted Sen. McCain for promoting an economic agenda that she said would be "nothing less than four more years of George Bush economics."

Sen. Clinton told a few hundred people gathered in a gymnasium at Kentucky State University in Frankfort that McCain puts special interests first and middle class families last. The Republican National Committee retorted that Clinton was launching a "desperate" attack and would subject the country to higher taxes and spending.

It has been harder in recent days for Sen. Clinton to portray herself as Sen. McCain's natural opponent. And lately, instead of criticizing her Democratic opponent, she's taken aim at the media and the political pundits who are counting her out.

Sen. Clinton dismisses them in a new television ad airing in Oregon. The spot features clips of political pundits as an announcer says: "In Washington, they talk about who's up and who's down. In Oregon, we care about what's right and what's wrong."

And in her remarks in Kentucky on Saturday, she portrayed pundits and the media as out-of-touch elitists who have jobs and health care, and no idea what it's like to worry about making ends meet.

"They're not the people I'm running to be a champion for -- I'm running to be a champion for all of you," she said.

She is still drawing crowds at her campaign events, but they are less raucous, and some of supporters admit they are concerned. Many remain upbeat, but are more reflective about the state of the primary race, which ends June 3 with contests in Montana and South Dakota.

As Sen. Clinton wrapped up a speech on the porch of a farmhouse in Bath, S.D., one day this week, 85-year-old Roy Heintzman said as he walked away: "I hope she's got an ace up her sleeve. She's going to need it."

Copyright © 2008 Associated Press

VOTE OBAMA! IF NOT, JUST VOTE! VOTING IS A RIGHT AND A DUTY!

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Si Se Puede Con Obama: From Peta-de-Aztlan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80_PwtS5b00

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Peter S. Lopez ~aka:Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com

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C/S