Senator Barack Obama has chosen to spend Tuesday night not in Kentucky or Oregon, the two states that will be holding their primaries that day, or even at his home in Chicago. Instead, Mr. Obama’s staff announced on Saturday, he will be returning to Iowa, where he won the Democratic caucuses way back in January and has at least two good reasons to revisit now.
Much more than nostalgia seems to have motivated that decision. If things continue to go as well for Mr. Obama this week as they have so far this month, with a romp in North Carolina, a strong showing in Indiana and daily growth in his support among party superdelegates, he could actually end up with enough pledged delegates to proclaim, without fear of contradiction, that he is now the Democratic nominee for president.
Mr. Obama’s ability to declare victory for the nomination will depend in large part on his performance in the Kentucky and Oregon votes. He has all but conceded Kentucky to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the clear favorite when the race started last year, spending little time there, but is favored in Oregon, where he is making a strong effort.
On Saturday, for example, Mr. Obama appeared at a town-hall-style meeting in the southwestern Oregon town of Roseburg, talking about health care and foreign policy and then taking questions about subjects that included Oregon’s assisted suicide law and domestic partnerships. Implicitly acknowledging what could be at stake in Oregon, he also urged supporters who have voted for him in advance, a common practice there, to make sure that they got their ballots in to tallying centers early enough to be sure they would be counted.
There would be a certain symmetry if Oregon proved to be the state to put Mr. Obama over the top and he can indeed celebrate that victory in Iowa.
It was his triumph in the caucuses in Iowa, of course, a state whose population is virtually all white, that first established him as a viable contender for the nomination. Oregon is another state whose population is overwhelmingly white; Portland, the state’s biggest urban area, is a place where he is expected to do very well, though it is sometimes called, even by its residents, “the whitest major city in the United States.”
Mrs. Clinton, of New York, has argued recently that one of the reasons she, rather than Mr. Obama, should be the Democratic nominee, despite his lead in delegates and the popular vote, is that she has more appeal to and will perform better among white voters who will be crucial to Democratic hopes in November. For Mr. Obama to be in Iowa to celebrate a victory in Oregon would allow him, without having to say a single word, to undermine, if not refute, that argument.
Mr. Obama’s traveling press secretary, Jen Psaki, suggested Saturday that his campaign was also in a moment of transition.
“We have our eye on upcoming primary competitions,” Ms. Psaki said after the meeting in Roseburg, mentioning not only Oregon but also Montana and South Dakota, which vote on June 3, concluding the primary season.
“But we are also beginning to lay the groundwork,” she added, in swing states that will be battlegrounds in November.
This past week, for instance, Mr. Obama, of Illinois, visited two of the states that Ms. Psaki mentioned: Michigan, whose disputed primary has provided the Democratic Party with such headaches, and Missouri. Two more are on Mr. Obama’s radar for this coming week: Florida, whose primary results are also being debated and where Mr. Obama plans to spend three days, and Iowa, where everything started.
Mr. Obama appears so eager to return to Iowa that in an appearance Friday night in Sioux Falls, S.D., he mistakenly greeted the crowd that had come to see him as if they were from Sioux City, which is farther south, in Iowa. As some in the crowd groaned, he quickly realized his mistake and apologized, reminding his South Dakota supporters that “I spent eight months in Iowa.”
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