Obama looks to party unity ahead of election against McCain

Clinton followed Obama to the podium at AIPAC, delivering a strong defense of Israel -- and also of her rival, saying to applause: "Let me be very clear. I know that Senator Obama will be a good friend to Israel."

While she made no mention of her future plans, her aides were not as reticent.

"I think a lot of her supporters would like to see her on the ticket," Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said.

But Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs cautioned "there is no deal in the works."

"When the dust settles and it makes sense for her, he'll meet whenever she wants to," Gibbs said. "She's accumulated a lot of votes throughout this country. We want to make sure that we're appealing to her voters."

On the final night of the primary season, Clinton won South Dakota while Obama took Montana -- and a slew of party superdelegates who declared their support to help him clinch the party nod. He did it, according to The Associated Press tally, based on primary elections, state Democratic caucuses and support from superdelegates. It took 2,118 delegates to clinch the nomination, and Obama had 2,144 by the AP count.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a dogged Clinton supporter, summed it up by saying that the race "is over."

The primaries behind them, McCain and Obama were wasting no time drawing the battle lines for the November election, which will make history with the election of either the oldest first-term president or the first black leader.

The Republican was taking his message -- that he has a record of reform while his opponent simply has rhetoric -- directly to the voters in television interviews from Louisiana, where he will campaign later Wednesday.

He again argued that Obama was inexperienced, and had "exercised very bad judgment on national security issues and others."

On Wednesday, McCain challenged Obama to join him in 10 town hall meetings with voters between now and the Democratic National Convention in August, with the first proposed for June 12 in New York.

Obama, speaking Tuesday night in St. Paul, Minnesota -- where the Republican convention will be held in September -- ceded no ground on the reformer mantle and cast McCain as a continuation of Bush's unpopular eight-year tenure.

In his speech at AIPAC, Obama urged his audience to reject what he said were false e-mails circulating about him, stressed his support for Israel and depicted the war in Iraq as a threat to Israel's security, which he described as "sacrosanct."

He backed a Palestinian state that is "contiguous and cohesive," but also said any agreement must "preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided," he said.

Obama said Bush's decision to invade Iraq had enabled the hardliners in Iran to tighten their grip on power, leaving both the United States and Israel less secure.

McCain "offers a false choice: stay the course in Iraq or cede the region to Iran. ... It is a policy for staying, not a policy for victory," Obama said, adding he favors a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

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