To mark this milestone, Obama will hold his election-night rally Tuesday in Iowa, the state whose January caucuses gave his campaign a huge boost.
Speaking to reporters here Sunday, Obama called it "a terrific way to bring things full circle," quickly adding that it would be premature to declare victory.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday, May 22, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 43 words Type of Material: Correction
Democratic primaries: A graphic in Monday's Section A showing how Oregon voted in the 2004 presidential election said George W. Bush won the state. As the graphic showed, Bush won more counties in the state but John F. Kerry won the popular vote.
Winning a majority of pledged delegates would signify that "the voters have given us the majority of the delegates they can assign, and obviously that's what this process is all about," he said.
Key Democratic figures have begun to rally around Obama. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who had remained studiously neutral in the race after dropping out in February, backed Obama last week, as did NARAL Pro-Choice America, a key liberal interest group.
Obama lately also has seemed like the candidate of chief concern to Republicans. He found himself in a fierce exchange over foreign policy with Bush, who in a speech to the Israeli Knesset implicitly criticized Obama as being willing to meet with America's enemies.
At the Portland rally Sunday afternoon, Obama said, "John McCain has decided to run for George Bush's third term, and we cannot have George Bush and his ideas still in the White House after this election."
Earlier in the day, he spoke to a small group of seniors at an assisted-living facility in the Portland suburb of Gresham and warned that McCain wanted to continue Bush's effort to privatize Social Security.
"Privatizing Social Security was a bad idea when George Bush proposed it," Obama said. "It's a bad idea today."
At a news conference, Obama also criticized McCain in response to the news that Thomas G. Loeffler, the Arizona senator's national finance committee chairman, resigned his post because of lobbying ties, making him the fifth McCain staffer to quit because of lobbying connections.
"It appears that John McCain is very much a creature of Washington," Obama said.
The McCain campaign fired back by noting that Obama had associated with William Ayers, a former leader of the militant leftist Weather Underground. "If Barack Obama is going to make associations the issue, we look forward to the debate about Sen. Obama's associations and what they say about his judgment and readiness to be commander in chief," spokesman Tucker Bounds said.
McCain's campaign also countered Obama on Social Security, citing the Illinois senator's expressed support for raising the Social Security payroll taxes on higher-income people.
