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WASHINGTON: Democrats groped for ways to avert civil war at their
presidential convention in August, as Barack Obama obliterated fundraising
records in his corrosive fight against Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, Republicans’ new standard-bearer
Senator John McCain capitalized on the Democratic in fighting to
portray himself as the only candidate with the mettle and experience
to be commander in chief.
Obama, regrouping after his bruising defeats by
Clinton in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday, admitted to “mistakes”
over the long campaign, but said Democratic voters clearly did not
want the race over yet.
“They want me to earn this thing and not feel
as if I’m just sliding into it,” he told ABC News late Thursday,
while signaling a tougher riposte to a barrage of attacks from
Clinton over his readiness to lead. “We’re going to have to make
sure that we’re not just letting a bunch of charges go
unanswered.”
With the Democrats facing weeks of brawling,
party boss Howard Dean was under pressure to convene new votes in
Florida and Michigan after the two states were stripped of their
delegates for holding their primaries early.
Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, a Clinton supporter,
said a solution was needed urgently to avoid disenfranchising five
million people in two states that will be major battlegrounds of the
November election.
“Otherwise, we’ve got a big train wreck
that’s coming [at the convention],” he said.
Both Obama and Clinton said they were open to a
solution for the Florida-Michigan puzzle, but left it to the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) to work out a solution.
DNC chairman Dean, however, said it was up to
the states themselves to find a way to repeat their January
nominating contests to abide by party rules.
The DNC was at odds with the two states over who
would foot the bill for new ballots, with the cost of a primary in
Florida alone estimated by state officials to range from 18 to 25
million dollars.
The Democratic contenders were scheduled to hold
dueling rallies in Wyoming on Friday, the day before state caucuses.
The Mississippi primary was next up Tuesday, but the biggest prize
on the horizon is Pennsylvania on April 22.
According to RealClearPolitics.com, Obama now
has 1,573 delegates to Clinton’s 1,464.
-- AFP
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