Obama focuses on race against McCain
US presidential hopeful Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail today after a brief break to switch his focus to the expected presidential contest against Republican John McCain.
Obama, inching closer day by day to claiming enough delegates to secure the nomination, spent the Mother’s Day holiday yesterday at home in Chicago.
But Obama’s chief strategist said in a television interview yesterday that his campaign is considering a suggestion from McCain’s campaign for the two to participate in joint town meetings and debates around America starting this summer.
Asked on Fox News Sunday about the suggestion and how seriously it was being considered, David Axelrod said: “Very seriously. ... We believe that it is the most significant election we’ve faced in a long time.
“We’re at war. Our economy is in turmoil. And we’ve got so many challenges that the people of this country deserve a serious discourse, and it shouldn’t be limited necessarily to three kinds of very regimented debates in the fall,” he added, referring to those sanctioned by a presidential commission.
Meanwhile Hillary Clinton tried to keep her campaign afloat even though her Democratic rival has an almost insurmountable lead in the delegate count.
Clinton spent yesterday wooing voters in West Virginia ahead of tomorrow’s primary, aiming for a big win that she hopes will keep her campaign afloat.
But Clinton showed no signs that she was going to quit the race anytime soon.
She toured the birthplace of Mother’s Day in rural West Virginia, offering Democrats a subtle reminder that her candidacy remains strong among women and blue-collar, white voters.
Clinton made a brief afternoon visit to the home of Anna Jarvis, who is credited with founding Mother’s Day 100 years ago. Clinton later told stories about women who have changed history by pressing for equal rights and breaking into male-dominated careers.
She highlighted her own mother’s working-class upbringing and quoted from letters she said mothers have written her recently.
Clinton said her favourite letter ended: “It’s not over until the lady in the pantsuit says it is.”
Clinton, who is vying to be America’s first woman president, started the year with a lead of 169-63 among superdelegates. Now, after adding five superdelegates to his column over the weekend, Obama has endorsements from 276 superdelegates, according to the latest tally by The Associated Press. Clinton has 271.5.
Superdelegates are the nearly 800 party and elected officials who attend the Democratic national convention this August in Denver and are free to support whomever they choose, regardless of the primary results.
They are key because the Democratic race has been so close that neither Obama nor Clinton can win the nomination without them.
Clinton is trying to highlight her support among women, white working-class voters, and older voters. Those demographics make West Virginia friendly territory where polls show her leading Obama by as much as 40 percentage points. Obama planned to campaign in West Virginia and Kentucky today.
Her chief strategist Howard Wolfson said West Virginia is a key swing state that Republicans won in 2000 and 2004, and that the former first lady will put back in the Democratic column. He said Obama should beat her there if he wants her out of the race.
“Why can’t Senator Obama beat Senator Clinton in West Virginia? Voters there have heard that he’s the presumptive nominee,” Wolfson said on Fox News Sunday.
“They’ve seen the great press he’s gotten in the past couple of days. Let’s let them decide. They have an opportunity. They want to end this on Tuesday, they’re perfectly capable of it.”
But even a dramatic primary win by Clinton in West Virginia won’t make much of a dent in Obama’s overall lead in the delegate count. Only 28 delegates are at stake in West Virginia.
In the overall race for the nomination, Obama has 1,864.5 delegates and Clinton has 1,697, according to the latest AP tally; 2,025 are needed to secure the Democratic nomination.
Clinton has struggled to raise money in recent weeks, and was set back further last Tuesday when she squeaked by with a narrow win in Indiana while Obama won handily in North Carolina.
Obama campaigned on Saturday in Oregon, which holds its primary on May 20.
Barely mentioning Clinton, Obama, who is bidding to be the first black president, warned that he won’t stay away from controversial issues and he attacked McCain’s proposal for a temporary halt in the federal gasoline tax as a “pander.”
In a sign of his new focus on McCain, Obama is beginning to campaign in states without upcoming primaries. He said he will soon visit Michigan and Florida, two battleground states whose Democratic primaries were essentially nullified by party disputes, and tomorrow he is due to visit Missouri for a campaign event focusing on economic issues.
Obama said he realises he must continue introducing himself to millions of Americans who do not know him well, and acknowledged that some question his patriotism because he no longer wears a lapel flag pin.
He said the test of patriotism “is whether we are true to the ideals and values upon which this country was founded,” and willing to fight for them “even when it’s politically inconvenient”.
