Voting today expected to deliver more delegate ammo for Obama

WASHINGTON – After the votes are counted in today’s primaries in Oregon and Kentucky, Barack Obama will likely to claim that he is within 100 delegates of the 2,026 needed to clinch the Democratic nomination for president, a landmark that could bring new pressure on Hillary Rodham Clinton to withdraw from the race.

But a group of Democratic women is urging Clinton to remain in the contest until the end, rebuffing the growing calls for her to gracefully end her candidacy soon.

“Not so fast,” said a full-page ad in the New York Times and in Kentucky newspapers today, paid for by a new, San Francisco-based political action committee called WomenCount. “We want Hillary to stay in this race until every vote is cast, every vote is counted, and we know that our voices are heard.”

Comparing the New York senator and former first lady to Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt and Barbara Jordan, the ad calls Clinton “this indefatigable woman” who “speaks with our voice [and] carries our hopes, dreams and aspirations with her.”

Stacy Mason, the PAC’s manager, said donations have been pouring in from women “frustrated by calls for her to get out of the race.” With the Democratic National Committee holding hearings May 30-31 in Washington, Mason said the group is preparing a new ad campaign calling for the Michigan and Florida voters to be seated at the convention.

Former New York Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro, who in 1984 became the first female vice presidential candidate of a major party, was even more pointed. On NBC’s “Today” show, Ferraro said she did not know if she will vote for Barack Obama. “Latent sexism has been around this country for a long time,” she said, citing Obama’s belittling of Clinton as “Annie Oakley” when, reaching out to rural voters, she said her father had taught her to shoot. “In this campaign it was patent.”

And Gloria Allred, a Clinton delegate, told MSNBC that several women’s groups in Los Angeles are planning a protest over news media coverage of Clinton’s campaign. “I’ve never seen anything like it,’ Allred said. “There’s a double standard.”

With primaries being held today in Kentucky and Oregon, former Sen. Tom Daschle, an early Obama supporter, called on Democrats to coalesce behind Obama in order to defeat Republican John McCain.

“We want to begin the process of bringing this party together, and I think that over the last few weeks we’ve seen indications at virtually all levels in both campaigns that there’s a desire to do that,” Daschle said on CBS’ “The Early Show.” Noting that the process might not begin “tomorrow or the next day,” Daschle said, “clearly there is a desire to unify.”

McCain, after pounding Obama for days over his proposal to reach out diplomatically to Iran, attacked the Illinois senator again today for his policy toward Cuba.

At a speech in Miami marking the anniversary of Cuba’s independence from the United States in 1902, McCain criticized Obama for first advocating normalization of U.S. ties with Cuba and then shifting to say he favors easing the U.S. embargo against Cuba, not lifting it entirely. And McCain won “boos” from the sympathetic audience when he said that Obama would reach out diplomatically to the Castro regime.

If Obama met with Cuban leader Raul Castro, McCain said, it would “send the worst possible signal to Cuba’s dictators – there is no need to undertake fundamental reforms; they can simply wait for a unilateral change in U.S. policy.”

McCain also criticized Obama and Clinton for opposing the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, saying they want to “retreat behind protectionist walls and undermine a key hemispheric ally.”

Asked if he would prosecute dictator Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro for shooting down American airplanes, McCain pledged if elected to ask the U.S. attorney general to investigate the crime and prosecute the Castro brothers if they are implicated.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Latino superdelegate who has endorsed Obama, responded by saying that McCain “doesn’t understand as well as Sen. Obama and I do how the Castro regime works.” Arguing that McCain and President Bush are “afraid to talk to bad guys,” Richardson, a former U.N. ambassador who has negotiated with dictatorships, said, “I have successfully negotiated with Castro and many like him, and I know that Barack has the judgment and experience to nudge the Cubans toward a better future…. He knows that you need to talk to tough customers so that you can show them that you are tougher than they are.”

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds shot back, saying that Richardson’s argument was a “comical attempt to turn placating our enemies into an act of toughness.” Noting that McCain is not afraid to talk “to bad guys,” Bounds said Richardson “has had tea with a few of world’s worst dictators.” He added, “John McCain has not only talked tough but been tough in encounters with more bad guys than Bill Richardson will ever meet.”