Democrats Seek to Solve Impasse Over Fla., Mich.

KWAME HOLMAN:

President Bush was seen with John McCain for less than a minute yesterday. The Phoenix airport photo-op was only the second time McCain had appeared with the unpopular president since March.

While McCain has fought being labeled the heir to Mr. Bush's presidency, he was in Nevada today hammering Barack Obama for opposing the policy most associated with the president, the war in Iraq.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), Arizona: And Senator Obama has been to Iraq once. A little over two years ago, he went and he has never seized the opportunity, except in a hearing, to meet with General Petraeus, with General Petraeus.

My friends, this is about — this is about leadership and learning. I went to Iraq right after the initial success of the invasion, and sergeants came up to me, and captains and majors, and others came up to me, and they said, "Senator McCain, we're going to lose this way. We've got to have more troops over here. We've got to have a new strategy."

And I went back and fought for the new strategy. And it took too long. But why did I do that? Because I learned. I learned from the men and women who are serving in the military.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Obama didn't mention McCain during a town hall meeting in Colorado, choosing to focus on education policies and his plans for reforming No Child Left Behind.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), Illinois: Promising high-quality teachers in every classroom and then leaving the support and pay for these teachers behind is wrong.

Labeling a school and its students as failures one day and then throwing up your hands and walking away from them the next, that's wrong.

We have to fix No Child Left Behind. We have to provide the funding we were promised, give our states the resources they need, and finally meet our commitment to special education.

And we also need to realize that we can meet high standards without forcing teachers and students to spend most of the school year preparing for a single high-stakes standardized test.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Obama also picked up the support of three more super-delegates today, bringing him within 45 delegates of securing the Democratic nomination.

But Hillary Clinton continues to push to include those disenfranchised delegates from Michigan and Florida, stripped because their state parties held early primaries in violation of party rules.

Clinton wants to count those disputed ballots to bolster her argument to super-delegates that she leads in the overall popular vote. Today in South Dakota, Clinton again tried to make the case that she was the stronger candidate to take on John McCain.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), New York: Right now, I am leading in the popular vote. My opponent is leading in pledged delegates, less than 200 out of 4,400. It is so close neither of us have the number of delegates necessary to be the nominee.

We have three more contests in Puerto Rico on Sunday, in Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday. We have to resolve Michigan and Illinois — I mean, Michigan and Florida.

And then what we have to do is determine, who would be the best president and who would be the stronger candidate against Senator McCain? I believe I am. And I believe the states that I have won and the electoral votes that I will win make a very strong argument for that.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Clinton today also sent a letter to super-delegates saying, in part, "I hope you will consider not just the strength of the coalition backing me, but also that more people will have cast their votes for me."

All eyes now turn to Saturday's meeting of the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee in Washington, which will try to solve the impasse over the Michigan and Florida delegations.