CHICAGO - Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama went to church on Sunday and joked about being “too black.”
 
In a Father’s Day speech to several thousand people at the predominantly black Apostolic Church of God, Obama talked about how people need to have high expectations for themselves then shared a few anecdotes about running for president.
 
“You remember at the beginning, people were wondering — how come he doesn’t have all the support in the African American community. You remember that?” he said to shouts of “oh yeah.”
 
“That was when I wasn’t black enough. Now I’m too black,” he said to laughter and applause.
 
Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president if elected in November, is the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas.

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Photo credit: Reuters/John Gress (Obama speaks at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago on June 15, 2008)

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Democrat Barack Obama declared victory  Tuesday in the hard-fought race for the Democratic nomination and said the country faced a defining moment in the November presidential election against Republican John McCain.

“America, this is our moment. This is our time.  Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love,” Obama told a crowd of 32,000 people at a St. Paul hockey arena.

    Obama, an Illinois senator who would be the first black U.S. president, gained enough delegates to win the bruising battle for the Democratic nomination against New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, who sought to be the first woman U.S. president.

“Tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another — a journey that will bring a new and better day to America,” said Obama, who was joined on stage by his wife Michelle, with whom he shared a celebratory fist-bump.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Eric Miller (Obama at St. Paul rally where he claimed the Democratic presidential nomination)

RAPID CITY, S.D. - While pundits pondered the intricacies of how Hillary Clinton might drop out of the presidential race, voters in South Dakota greeted the candidate on Monday in a traditional style by talking about issues that affect their lives.

As she campaigned in a Rapid City diner, Clinton chatted with a nurse who asked about improving health care and a woman who wanted to talk about veterans’ care.

A few feet away, a young woman described a friend paralyzed in a wrestling accident and implored Clinton to support stem cell research.

Stardust Red Bow, 27, told Clinton she owed $90,000 in student loans after earning her master’s degree in social work.

“There are people with the same problems all around our nation,” Red Bow said after talking to Clinton. ”Even if she doesn’t win, I’m sure she will still be active in politics and can still sponsor bills.”

At another table, Joseph Bryant, 19, asked Clinton her views on women in combat and the New York senator talked about the support and medical roles women fill in Iraq and elsewhere.

“I thought it was a great answer,” Bryant said as she moved on.

Margaret Dimock, 38, burst into tears as she told Clinton she works three jobs and
has no health insurance because she has had seizures since childhood.

Clinton asked her staff to take down Dimock’s name and address to help her find assistance. 

“Don’t get discouraged. Keep the faith,” Clinton told her. ”We’ll follow
through.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Rick Wilking (Clinton campaigns in Rapid City, South Dakota) 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who aims most of his attacks at Democrat Barack Obama these days, noted Monday that Hillary Clinton was still in the race — and praised her for being a role model to women.

“Yes, Sen. Clinton is still in the race,” McCain said in response to a questioner, adding that people should not underestimate the former first lady or her husband, President Bill Clinton.

McCain, an Arizona senator who has wrapped up his party’s presidential nomination, reminded an audience in Nashville that he had many differences with the New York senator.

But like Obama, the Illinois senator who is close to clinching the Democratic White House nomination, McCain slipped into the past tense when describing Clinton and her historic campaign.

“She has inspired generations of American women to believe that they can reach the highest office in this nation,” McCain said.

“I respect the campaign that she has run.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (McCain at AIPAC meeting in Washington Tuesday)

WATERFORD, Mich. - Barack Obama praised rival Hillary Clinton as “an outstanding public servant” and said he hopes to meet with her sometime after the final Democratic presidential nomination contests take place on Tuesday.
 
Speaking to reporters outside a Rite-Aid distribution center in Waterford, Michigan, the Illinois senator gave more details about a conversation he had with Clinton when he called her on Sunday to congratulate her on her win in Puerto Rico.
 
“There aren’t many people who understand exactly how hard she’s been working. I’m one of them,” Obama said of their hard-fought race.
 
“I told her that once the dust has settled, I was looking forward to meeting with her at a time and place of her choosing,” he said.
 
Obama, who hopes he will rack up enough delegates this week to clinch the Democratic nomination, has been making a point of publicly praising the New York senator. His hope is to ease divisions that have opened up in the party during the months of campaigning.
 
Some Democrats worry the rift among Democratic voters may put the party at a disadvantage in the November election against Republican Sen. John McCain.
 
At a raucus gathering over the weekend, the Democratic party’s rules committee backed a compromise unfavorable to Clinton for the seating of disputed Michigan and Florida delegations at the party’s August convention.
 
The decision fanned anger on the part of some Clinton supporters. The committee rejected a Clinton-backed proposal to seat all the Florida delegates at full strength, then backed compromises seating both the Michigan and Florida delegations while cutting their voting power.
 
Clinton’s supporters were particularly angry about the decision to award Obama delegates in Michigan, where he did not even appear on the ballot.

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REUTERS/Jason Reed (Sen. Barack Obama speaks in Detroit, Michigan, June 2, 2008)

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - We’ve seen him play basketball, he has been teased mercilessly about his dismal bowling skills and he even pretended to take part in a 400-meter hurdles race at a track meet last week. But pool?

Barack Obama loves it. And he decided to spend part of a 6-hour campaign stop in West Virginia — just one day before the primary election there — playing pool.

“The sign of a misspent youth,” Obama joked as he walked around and eyed the table in the smoky Schultzie’s Billiards in South Charleston.

“Obviously I wasn’t doing wholesome things like bowling,” Obama added to laughter, referring to a horrible showing in the bowling alley during a stop in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago.

The days of his youth came back quickly in the game against against Paul Scott, a local army veteran of the Iraq war. From the opening break, Obama sank several good shots — drawing some shouts of ‘whoa’ from the steadily growing crowd.

“Oh, it worked,” he said after he made one particularly tricky shot that sunk a ball into the opposite corner pocket. He also hammed it up for the crowd of photographers: contorting himself as he played with the idea of a behind-the-back shot.

The men played a gentleman’s game of pool, continuing on even though Obama sank the 8-ball early on. ”That’s what you’re supposed to do with a senator,” he said to his opponent as they kept playing.

After Scott sank his final ball with one of Obama’s remaining, the presidential candidate shook his hand and patted him on the back.

“I didn’t embarrass myself,” Obama said, then went on to the business of campaigning during his final minutes in the state.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama plays basketball during a campaign stop in Indiana on May 4) 

BEAVERTON, Oregon (Reuters) - The battle for the Democratic nomination has been long and tiring. So much so that Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama seemed to forget how many states were in the United States.

“Over the last fifteen months, we’ve travelled to every corner of the United States,” the Illinois senator said during a campaign event in Beaverton, Oregon.

“I’ve now been in 57 states, I think — one left to go,” Obama said. “Alaska and Hawaii I was not allowed to go to … my staff could not justify it,” he added after hearing laughter from the audience.

Obama apparently did not realize that he had said 57, instead of 47, states visited so far.

“It sure seems like there are 57 states,” a travel-weary campaign aide said after the event. 

Obama has actually been to 46 U.S. states so far during the campaign. He has not visited South Dakota, Arkansas, Alaska or Hawaii, an aide said.

The Illinois senator and his rival, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, have criss-crossed the country as they vie for the Democratic presidential nomination. The winner will face Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain in November’s general election.

Photo credit: Reuters/Steve Dipaola (Obama speaks about economy in Beaverton, Oregon) 

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CHICAGO - As Barack Obama celebrated his compelling win in North Carolina and the unexpected closeness of the Indiana race on Tuesday night, his senior strategist said one of the campaign’s top tasks now is to court influential Democratic Party figures.
 
The Democratic senator from Illinois was seen as showing resilience after a bumpy ride in which he has struggled with questions about his former pastor’s fiery sermons and efforts by Clinton to paint him as an “out of touch” elitist.
 
Analysts said his rival Hillary Clinton, who won only narrowly in Indiana where she had been favored to do well, was likely to face increased pressure to exit the race because her showing did little to advance her argument that she would be more electable than Obama in a matchup against Republican Sen. John McCain.
 
Asked by reporters whether there would be a slew of new endorsements from the party stalwarts and officials known as the “superdelegates,” Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, was careful not to reveal too much.
 
“We’re going to be reaching out to them,” Axelrod told reporters as Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, flew back home to Chicago from his evening rally in North Carolina.
 
The Obama strategist said the message in these conversations would be a simple one: “Read the newspapers.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Chris Keane (Obama waves to supporters at his North Carolina and Indiana primary election night rally in Raleigh.)

WASHINGTON - Remember John Edwards? 
    He ran a spirited campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, never caught much fire and dropped out of the race about, oh, it feels like 10 years ago (actually it was January).
    The former North Carolina senator has kept a low profile ever since and has resisted entreaties from the remaining Democrats, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, for his endorsement.
    And he is still resisting, as voters cast ballots on Tuesday in his home state’s Democratic primary election, according to People Magazine, which tracked down Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth.
    Edwards, who was John Kerry’s vice presidential running mate in 2004, told People he likes Clinton’s “tenacity” but sees “a lot of the old politics” in her.
    He likes Obama, too, but “sometimes I want to see more substance under the rhetoric.”
    Bottom line, according to People, rather than endorse one or the other, Edwards and his wife will save their political capital for causes such as fighting poverty and improving U.S. health care.

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Photo credit:  Reuters/Lee Celano (Edwards, with wife Elizabeth on the right, announces his withdrawal from the Democratic presidential race in January.)

 DURHAM, N.C. - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama took aim on Monday at his rival Hillary Clinton’s argument that he is less electable than her given his recent series of troubles and because he has not been fully “vetted.”

Amid a flap over comments from his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and other controversies, Obama has seen his poll numbers slide lately against both Clinton and the Republican candidate for November’s election, John McCain.

Obama publicly denounced Wright last week after the pastor moved back into the spotlight and repeated his inflammatory charges that the Sept. 11 attacks were in part retribution for U.S. policy and that the government spread AIDS to harm blacks.

Obama has also faced questions about his association with 1960s radical William Ayres and about why he doesn’t wear a U.S. flagpin.

The Illinois senator said those issues had hurt his campaign but did not “knock us off stride.” The fact that the impact from those problems was not greater was a sign that his candidacy was strong, he said.

“Despite all that, if you look at it, we’re still fundamentally tied with John McCain,” Obama said, responding to a question from an undecided voter who asked him about the electability question.

Clinton has pushed the argument that the party elders and officials known as the “superdelegates” should rally around her as the nominee because, as a former first lady, she has been “vetted” and is better able to fend off attacks from Republicans in a general election.

Obama’s counterargument is that the Wright controversy and other issues have that have come up amount to a “vetting” for him. He also challenged Clinton’s contention that Republicans would not try to dredge up old lines of attack against her.

“Sen. Clinton, despite what she says about being vetted, she hasn’t gone through what I’ve been going through over the last couple of months because she’s not the front-runner,” Obama said.

After Obama spoke, the McCain camp weighed in on the electability question, saying that Obama’s opposition to a summer gas tax holiday and his support for an increase in the capital gains tax would leave him vulnerable in the general election if he becomes the nominee.

“Those are Obama’s pledged positions, and they aren’t popular in North Carolina, Indiana or most anywhere else in America,” said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds. 

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-Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama orders food and coffee in Durham, North Carolina on May 5)