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Sunrise, Florida: The battle of attrition for the Democratic presidential nomination diverted to the Sunshine State on Wednesday, with Hillary Clinton fighting to seat delegates barred from the convention and Barack Obama looking ahead to the November election.
With the candidates focused on different goals in a state that voted in its unsanctioned Democratic primary four months ago, the day of campaigning underscored the historic nature of the drawn-out primary season that ends June 3.
And it coincided with word that presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain will meet this weekend with Florida's popular governor, Charlie Crist, a potential running mate who could make the state even harder for the Democrats to win.
Clinton, who has pinned her fading ambitions largely on seating delegations from here and Michigan at the Democratic National Convention, invoked the 2000 presidential election that ended with a Supreme Court order to stop a recount of Florida's votes.
"We still have nightmares about 2000 and what happened in that election," the New York senator told several hundred supporters spilling out of a suburban clubhouse here north of Miami. "It was wrong."
Clinton hopes the DNC rules committee, which meets on May 31, will reverse the punishment it imposed when the Florida and Michigan parties held their primaries ahead of the nationally sanctioned February 5 start date.
In Kissimmee, near Orlando, Obama also pushed for seating of the delegates, though he suggested it come after he secures the nomination and in the spirit of party unity.
"My hope is, in a couple of weeks time, we've won more elections, we've won some more delegates, we've gotten the Florida delegates seated ... and then we're going to have a convention in August, and I'm going to accept that nomination," Obama said at a town hall meeting.
But Obama was focused on McCain more than Clinton. Earlier in the day, before a crowd of about 15,000 in Tampa, Obama blasted McCain over his campaign's decision to cut five staffers because of their lobbying ties. The Illinois senator noted that his Senate colleague from Arizona had sponsored a 1996 Bill that would have banned candidates from hiring lobbyists.
"The John McCain then would be pretty disappointed with John McCain now, because he hired some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington," Obama said.
And Obama repeated his contention, which he first argued on Tuesday night as voting ended in Oregon, that he is on the "threshold" of securing the Democratic nomination after winning the majority of delegates chosen in primaries and caucuses.
Including superdelegates, party and elected officials, Obama has 1,963 delegates and Clinton has 1,778, according to the count kept by The Associated Press. Without the Michigan and Florida delegations, 2,026 are needed to win the nomination.
From the comfort of a commanding lead, Obama lavished praise on Clinton for running "an outstanding campaign".
"She deserves our admiration and our respect because she has set a standard and she has broken through barriers, and will open up opportunity for a lot of people, including my two young daughters," he said.
Clinton also struck a conciliatory tone but did not waver from her theme of the day that the Florida and Michigan delegations should be able to vote at the convention. Clinton won both contests after Obama withdrew from the Michigan ballot and, under mutual agreement, none of the Democratic candidates campaigned in Florida.
The Clinton campaign is mounting an online petition drive, which Clinton said has collected more than 300,000 names, to pressure the DNC.
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