BILLINGS, MONT. — The Democratic presidential nomination contest -- relegated to almost a sideshow in recent days as fireworks intensified between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain -- is all but certain to pass an important milestone today as voters head to the polls in Kentucky and Oregon.
By day's end, Obama expects to have locked up a majority of the pledged delegates to the party's national convention. Though not assuring Obama of the nomination in August, the achievement would signal that victory is near in his hard-fought battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton.
To mark the moment, Obama will appear at a rally tonight not in one of the primary states, but in Iowa -- the state whose January caucuses brought Obama a win that galvanized his campaign.
The choreographed setting is meant to suggest the near- inevitability of Obama's nomination, without claiming an outright triumph that would offend Clinton loyalists whose support is needed in November.
On Monday, Obama continued to target McCain, not Clinton. At a stop in Billings, Mont., the Illinois senator noted the recent resignation of five McCain campaign staffers because of their lobbying activities. Obama said the presumptive Republican nominee's campaign was "being run by Washington lobbyists and paid for with their money."
Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for the Arizona senator, countered that McCain had "the strictest policy barring federal lobbyists from the campaign in history," and challenged Obama to "shed light on the long list of federal lobbyists advising him on policy issues."
The Clinton campaign, for its part, signaled that Obama's fight for the Democratic nomination wasn't over. The New York senator will head Wednesday to Florida, a state whose delegates she is trying to have reinstated to rescue her candidacy. Obama had already planned to appear there on the same day.
Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, characterized Obama's rally in Iowa as a "plan to declare himself the Democratic nominee," and said his delegate totals didn't justify that stance. "Premature victory laps and false declarations of victory are unwarranted," he said.
Political strategists not affiliated with either Democratic campaign said Obama apparently was being careful not to actually claim victory tonight.
