Obama Camp Making Plans for General Election
Clinton, However, Shows No Letup In Her Campaign

By Matthew Mosk and Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 18, 2008; A08

ROSEBURG, Ore., May 17 -- As the votes are being counted Tuesday night in Oregon and Kentucky, Sen. Barack Obama plans to hold a triumphant rally in Iowa, returning to the state that propelled him to the top of the Democratic field and sending a clear signal that he has shifted his focus to the general election.

Obama advisers said Iowa is one of several states, along with Missouri, Michigan and Florida, that they have targeted for wins in November and where they plan to campaign even before his primary battle against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton ends. Obama made campaign stops in Missouri and Michigan last week and plans a three-day swing through Florida starting Wednesday.

"John McCain has gone unchallenged for far too long, and we need to start laying out the argument that Barack Obama is the better choice," said Jen Psaki, an Obama spokeswoman, referring to the presumptive Republican nominee.

Obama has attempted to draw a series of contrasts with McCain over the past 10 days, giving speeches in Missouri on their economic differences, in Michigan on manufacturing jobs, and in South Dakota on rural and farm issues. During an appearance at a packed high school auditorium here Saturday, Obama focused almost exclusively on McCain, telling crowds that a vote for the senator from Arizona would amount to a vote for four more years of President Bush's policies.

"If you agree we've had a great foreign policy over the last four or eight years, then you should vote for John McCain," Obama said. Turning his attention to health care, Obama said that McCain "wants to give you the failed Bush health-care policy for another four years."

McCain's campaign struck back with several e-mails to reporters highlighting what it said were inaccuracies in Obama's attacks. "Whether you're talking about tax increases for hardworking families or a dangerous level of weak judgment, Americans are going to reject a candidate that has no record of bipartisan success," said Tucker Bounds, a McCain campaign spokesman.

Obama has not completely forgotten about his battle against Clinton. He is spending the weekend campaigning in Oregon, where he is expected to win Tuesday, and he will spend Monday in Montana, which votes June 3.

But at one point in his speech here, Obama pointedly used past-tense to describe the primary battle with Clinton, saying it "was hard-fought."

"She was relentless and very effective," he added.

All three candidates took time out from their campaigning Saturday to send their prayers and wishes to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who suffered a seizure and was hospitalized in Boston. Kennedy was alert and talking with family by Saturday afternoon, sources told The Post.

Like Obama, Clinton sought to link McCain to Bush as she started a three-day campaign trip through Kentucky, where she is expected to win Tuesday.

"Senator McCain's economic policy boils down to this: Don't just continue driving our nation in the wrong direction; put your foot on the accelerator and gun it," Clinton said in Frankfort. "It's hard to imagine, but Senator McCain and President Bush are like two sides of the same coin, and it doesn't amount to a whole lot of change."

Clinton also directed her attention to "people on TV" who are calling for her to drop out, while continuing to argue that the overall vote count in the Democratic race shows that she is the best candidate to take on McCain.

"All of those people on TV who are telling you and everybody else this race is over and I should just be graceful and say it's over, even though I've won more votes, those are all people who have a job, those are people who have health care," she said at a speech in Loretto, on the grounds of the distillery for Maker's Mark bourbon. "They're not the people who I'm running to be a champion for. I'm running to be a champion for all of you."

Clinton has also targeted Washington pundits in an ad her campaign started airing on Friday in Oregon. The ad shows video of George Stephanopoulos, Chris Matthews and Tim Russert -- who have all declared the race over -- as a narrator 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."

Clinton hopes winning the popular vote will convince superdelegates -- Democratic party officials and elected officials whose support will determine who wins the race -- that she is the strongest candidate against McCain.

But Clinton has the most overall votes only if the count includes Florida and Michigan, where neither candidate campaigned and the results were disqualified because the states scheduled primaries in defiance of party rules. Additionally, Obama's name was not on the ballot in Michigan. Clinton's formulation also apparently does not factor in estimates from a handful of caucus states that do not release overall vote counts.

In Oregon, Obama kept his focus on Republicans, whom he said he hopes to draw to his side in November. During a visit to a hospital in Eugene, nurse Carol Ann Anderson, 66, a registered Republican and self-described conservative, said she did not like any of the candidates and is considering voting for Obama, "given what the choices are."

Another Republican, X-ray technician Ron Spooner, 42, told the senator he is "torn between you and Senator McCain" but that he specifically has concerns about Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

"How do I know I can trust you?" Spooner asked bluntly.

Obama paused before advising Spooner to "look at what I've done for 20 years, starting as a community organizer." When Spooner pressed him further, Obama said, "The nice thing is we're going to have four more months, five more months, of active campaigning where I think you can watch and see: Am I consistent? Do I stay honest? Let me take your advice, and we'll try to make sure I stay honest in what is sometimes a dishonest profession."