Across the Pond: Obamamania in Portland

Barack Obama yesterday addressed his biggest political rally to date, a spectacular outdoor gathering on the banks of the river Willamette near Portland, Oregon.

The Illinois senator smiled down on a sea of 75,000 faces on a fine, sunlit afternoon.

“Wow! Wow! Wow!” were his first words as he surveyed the crowd, which included people in kayaks and small pleasure boats on the river on an unusually hot day.

It is “fair to say this is the most spectacular setting for the most spectacular crowd” of his campaign, he told the audience.

He expects to win Oregon when the state holds its primary contest tomorrow, edging him a fraction nearer to his goal of winning the Democratic presidential nomination. Leafy Oregon is strongly environmentally aware, and its population is seen as particularly susceptible to his message of change.

Hillary Clinton, his rival, was meanwhile on the campaign trail in Kentucky, which also votes tomorrow. Although she is set to win there, it appears statistically impossible for her to overtake him in delegate numbers now, with only three more primaries to go before party voting ends on June 3.

Mr Obama has shifted his focus from his past duel with Mrs Clinton to the coming battle with John McCain, who has already secured the Republican nomination.

At yesterday's rally he tried to paint Mr McCain as a politician in the pocket of powerful economic vested interest groups, criticising him for recruiting lobbyists to advise him on policy.

At the weekend Thomas Loeffler, Mr McCain's national finance co-chairman, became the fifth person to resign from his campaign team because of concern about links to lobbying.

"Over the last several weeks John McCain keeps on having problems with his top advisers being lobbyists," remarked Mr Obama.

He also sought to link Mr McCain to some of President Bush's most unpopular economic policies.

He referred to Mrs Clinton only briefly and in the past tense, praising her as a formidable candidate who "has been as smart and tough and determined, and... has worked as hard as she can".

Mr Obama invited his wife, Michelle, and daughters Sasha and Malia on stage before his speech for a family hug. Accompanied by his security detail, he went down into the crowd, shaking hands and giving high-fives as he greeted some of his supporters.

Mrs Clinton signalled that she would not give up yet. She still hopes, against the odds, to force the Democratic party to reinstate the delegates for Florida and Michigan, who were barred from the party's convention for breaking the rules over the timing of their primary contests.

Both states voted for her, and their large number of delegates could change the face of the battle for the nomination. But their results are not seen as authoritative, as neither delegate campaigned in either state and Mr Obama's name was not even on the ballot paper in Michigan.

The financial backers of Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton have already begun meetings to talk about the two campaigns working together after June 3, according to The Washington Post.

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