Ending Tough
Week, Obama Tries to Refocus Campaign

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama battled to refocus his campaign on the five-year-old Iraq war and the slumping U.S. economy, ending a week that saw him clobbered over incendiary remarks by his longtime Chicago pastor.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination, blasted away on the war and economy as well, while pressing demands to reinstate delegates in Michigan and Florida.

Clinton won both contests, but the national Democratic Party said they would not be counted because the state votes were held too early and violated party rules.

With Republicans suffering under the unpopularity of President George Bush because of the war and the economy, the Democratic Party could have been poised to easily capture the White House in the November.

But the bruising nomination fight between Clinton and Obama threatens Democratic unity in the historic race, which could place the first woman or the first African-American in the U.S. presidency.

What might have been a clear shot at victory has been encumbered by political bickering between the Obama and Clinton camps, the need for heavy campaign spending, and the candidates' need to focus on each other rather than Sen. John McCain, the Arizona senator who is Republican nominee-in-waiting.

It was a particularly troubling week for Obama. National polling showed his fortunes slipping dramatically in the aftermath of the remarks by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Last week, the Gallup poll had Obama leading Clinton 50% to 44% in a survey conducted March 11-13, but this week that changed. Gallup now shows Clinton ahead of Obama 48% to 43%, according to voters questioned from March 17-19.

Portions of Wright sermons blamed the United States for bringing the September 11, 2001, attacks on itself and declared that God should damn America for racial bigotry.

In a week that marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, both Clinton and Obama gave major speeches restating their plans to end the conflict quickly. And both also sought to link the slumping economy to the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the war.

McCain, meanwhile, visited Iraq and said he found significant progress since the Bush administration ordered additional troops into the country, but warned that al-Qaida in Iraq -- while on the run -- remained a dangerous force.

In West Virginia on Thursday, Obama delivered what he billed as a major address on Iraq, declaring that vast spending to sustain the American military effort was responsible for American economic woes.

''When you're spending over $50 to fill up your car because the price of oil is four times what it was before Iraq, you're paying a price for this war,'' Obama said. ''When Iraq is costing each household about $100 a month, you're paying a price for this war.''

By linking the economy to the war, Obama was playing to his perceived strength as someone who spoke out against the war as a state lawmaker in Illinois. He has criticized Clinton for only recently opposing the war and said Thursday that her criticism of McCain's war policies lacked teeth.

''Her point would have been more compelling had she not joined Senator McCain in making the tragically ill-considered decision to vote for the Iraq war in the first place,'' Obama said to cheers.

Clinton was in both Indiana and West Virginia on Thursday, states that hold primary votes May 6 and May 13, respectively.

In Michigan, the drive for a second primary collapsed, prompting a fresh dispute between Obama and Clinton over the fate of the state's 128 national convention delegates.

Obama's campaign said a fair resolution would be to split them evenly with Clinton. Aides to the former first lady instantly rejected the idea and said they would consider a mail-in primary -- even though Obama has raised concerns about the security of a vote by mail organized so quickly.

Clinton has been leading the effort to hold a revote in Michigan, eager for a chance to close the gap on her rival.

Speaking to reporters while campaigning in Terre Haute, Ind., Clinton said Obama's nomination could be tainted if he achieves it without a second Michigan contest.

''I do not see how two of our largest and most significant states can be disenfranchised and left out of the process of picking our nominee without raising serious questions about the legitimacy of that nominee,'' Clinton said of Michigan and Florida.

Florida also had its 210 delegates stripped for voting in January. A proposal for a mail-in vote in the state fell apart earlier this month without support from the party's congressional delegation.

Obama leads Clinton among delegates whose votes were determined by primaries or caucuses, 1,406 to 1,249. But neither is on track to win enough pledged delegates in primaries and caucuses to clinch the nomination -- 2,024 are needed -- so the outcome could be decided by superdelegates, elected and party officials who can choose whomever they like.

Clinton leads among superdelegates who have announced a choice, 250-213. About 40% of the superdelegates have not declared, including 10 Democratic governors.

Halfway across the world, McCain said that Americans were increasingly backing the U.S. troop ''surge'' strategy in Iraq and believed the tactic was bringing success.

''That will be, frankly, a very big issue for the country, whether we withdraw and have al-Qaida win and announce to the world they have won and have things collapse there, or whether we see this strategy through to success,'' McCain told reporters in London, after meeting with British prime minister Gordon Brown.

Brown has said he hopes to cut British forces, based near the southern city of Basra, from 4,000 to about 2,500 in coming months. McCain has said repeatedly that pulling out of Iraq quickly would be a mistake that would boost Iran and al-Qaida.

He told reporters in London, however, that his warnings about the dangers of a precipitate withdrawal from Iraq were about U.S. forces only. Britain's decision ''is made by the British government and people,'' he said. (Steven Hurst, AP)