Campaign '08

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Democratic leaders are pushing for a quick end to their party's grueling presidential nomination battle, days ahead of the final primaries and a key party meeting. Supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton planned a weekend rally in hopes of saving her faltering candidacy.

Barack Obama is now within striking distance of the nomination after a combative months-long campaign that some top Democrats worry could harm the party's chances of winning the White House. Republican John McCain effectively wrapped up the Republican nomination in March.

As Obama worked to mend fences with Clinton and her supporters, he looked to defuse the latest controversy involving a clergyman — a supporter's sermon mocking the former first lady.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that he, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and party chairman Howard Dean will urge uncommitted superdelegates — the party leaders and others who may choose whomever they like — to choose sides quickly so that there is not a fight at the August convention.

"By this time next week, it will all be over, give or take a day," Reid said Thursday.

Democratic officials said Pelosi already has begun contacting uncommitted House members urging them to weigh in soon after the primary season ends.

There are just three primaries remaining — Puerto Rico on Sunday and Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday.

Obama picked up two more superdelegates Friday, bringing him within 42 delegates of clinching the nomination, according to The Associated Press tally, and leads Clinton by 200 delegates. He has 1,984, to her 1,782, out of the 2,026 necessary for the nomination.

Obama stands to gain a minimum of roughly 20 delegates in the three remaining primaries under party rules that distribute them in proportion to the popular vote — even if he loses all three.

Both Democrats focused on the remaining primaries Friday. Clinton was meeting with voters in Puerto Rico, and Obama — who earlier in the week campaigned in western states that will be key in the general election — was holding a rally in Montana.

Clinton is now hoping that leaders at a meeting of the party's rules committee on Saturday will decide to seat the delegations from Michigan and Florida, whose primaries were voided when they were moved into January in violation of party rules.

Her supporters are mobilizing for protests outside the Washington hotel where the committee is meeting. Clinton has threatened to campaign to the convention if she is not satisfied with the meeting results.

At least several busloads of Clinton supporters were anticipated from Florida and perhaps scores of people from Michigan as well as demonstrators from various parts of the United States. Barack Obama's campaign discouraged a counterprotest, although his supporters vied with Clinton backers for the limited public seats inside the meeting. People in those seats cannot bring in signs or banners or disrupt the meeting, party officials said.

The party must handle the situation delicately. It wants to enforce discipline and not shift the campaign's momentum, but must avoid alienating Clinton's supporters and lose a chance at capturing two swing states that have the potential to go Republican.

Obama's campaign is willing to give Clinton the major share of delegates from Florida and Michigan, but is stopping short of her demand to fully recognize the two renegade states. Clinton won both, but both Obama and Clinton agreed not to campaign for the Florida primary and Obama was not even on the ballot in Michigan.

Nationally, Obama has developed a clear lead over Clinton — 54 percent to 41 percent, a Pew Research Center poll conducted May 21-25 shows. That is a change from April, when the same poll found he and Clinton were running about even.

When matched against McCain, Obama is now running about even among all voters; he has had a narrow advantage over McCain most of the year.

McCain, a decorated Navy pilot and former Vietnam prisoner of war, has built much of his candidacy on his foreign policy and national security experience. While he supports continued U.S. military involvement in Iraq, Obama has called for a quick withdrawal of the troops. He made his only trip to Iraq in January 2006 as part of a congressional delegation.

In the latest campaign controversy to involve a clergyman, Obama said he was "deeply disappointed" by a priest's sermon at his church that mocked Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Chicago activist who supports Obama, also apologized for last Sunday's sermon at Obama's church, in which he said Clinton's eyes welled with tears before the New Hampshire primary because she felt "entitled" to the Democratic nomination and because "there's a black man stealing my show."

Obama has cut ties with his former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who was blasted for his sermons blaming U.S. policies for the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and calls of "God damn America" for its racism.

McCain rejected endorsements from two evangelicals. The Rev. John Hagee has been criticized as anti-Catholic, but McCain rejected his endorsement only after a Web site unearthed a sermon Hagee gave portraying Hitler as a tool God used to deliver Jews to the promised land. McCain disowned the Rev. Ron Parsley's endorsement after ABC News reported that he had called Islam an "anti-Christ" religion.

(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)