Hours after reaching the number of delegates he needed to win the battle, the Illinois lawmaker was trying to heal wounds in his own party and fend off a challenge from his Republican opponent.

In Louisiana, GOP candidate John McCain welcomed Obama into the ranks of presumptive presidential nominees by challenging him to a series of town hall meetings where the two can be "as free from the regimented trappings, rules and spectacle of formal debates as possible." He proposed that the first meeting be June 12 in New York, followed by one each week until the Democratic convention in late August.

That would be in addition to the three official debates scheduled for the fall.

McCain puckishly suggested that the two candidates travel to the events on the same airplanes. "It would probably help out on energy savings," he said. Jokingly alluding to the financial disparity between the two campaigns, he added, "Given our expenses, I know my campaign would agree to it."

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe in a statement called the debate concept "appealing." Plouffe said Obama would prefer "a format that is less structured and lengthier" than McCain has suggested and raised the famous debates in an Illinois Senate race between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858.

There's another historical precedent for what McCain suggests: In the early 1960s, President John Kennedy and Barry Goldwater, the leading GOP candidate for the 1964 race, discussed traveling together to debates around the country. Goldwater and Kennedy were friends from the Senate. The unusual plan never came to pass because Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

As he begins negotiations with McCain, Obama is trying to unite a party that was deeply divided between him and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Obama said he spoke with Clinton after midnight following Tuesday's primaries. "I'm very confident how unified the Democratic Party's going to be to win in November," he told reporters as he left the Senate.

Earlier in the day, Clinton and Obama delivered speeches to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee within minutes of each other, but they did not appear together.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., expressed the dazed feelings of many Clinton supporters just after she congratulated Obama on the Senate floor: "I feel like I've just gone to the Army-Navy game, and I was with the team that didn't score the winning touchdown. We're all ready to serve under the same flag, but I need to sit in the stadium for a little bit."

Mikulski, the longest-serving woman senator, demurred when asked whether she thought Obama should put Clinton on the ticket. "It has been intense," she said of the campaign. "They need a little bit of time, and they need some time with each other, so they can talk about that."

Mark Aronchick, a Clinton fundraiser and Philadelphia lawyer, said there was talk of the "dream ticket" among Clinton supporters and fundraisers in New York Tuesday night after it became clear that Obama had the delegates he needed to clinch the nomination. The "prevailing mood in the room last night was, 'Let's get this ticket together and rock and roll,' " he said in an interview Wednesday.

Aronchick said there have been overtures from the Obama campaign for supporters and fundraisers to "get on the train." He said that there was no rush and that Clinton's supporters were taking their cue from her.

Once the fundraisers from both teams join together, "we'll set world records for the amount of resources that a campaign can raise," he said.

As with fundraisers, Obama has courted party leaders known as superdelegates, who are joining his campaign in large numbers.

The Associated Press reported that Obama added 51 superdelegates Tuesday.

He picked up 21 more Wednesday, including numerous members of Congress. Clinton had a net loss of nine superdelegates over the two days.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a former Clinton administration official from Obama's home state of Illinois, was among those who declared for Obama.

"The voters," Emanuel said in a statement, "have spoken."

Contributing: Fredreka Schouten in McLean; Ken Dilanian in Washington

		Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington on Wednesday, one day after securing the delegates needed for the nomination. By Charles Dharapak, AP

ADVERTISEMENT

Iconocast is about learning and teaching without borders; we offer eMarketing, Internet Advertising, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Online Branding, and eMarketing News Services.

Iconocast Home Page

Contact Iconocast

© 2003-07. ICONOCAST is a trademark of iconocast.com.