Obama inching ever closer to nomination

(Yahoo News) - Close to securing the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama is lavishing attention on Florida and its wreckage of a presidential primary while minding his manners with Hillary Rodham Clinton — a rival he now can afford to praise.

Obama detoured Wednesday from the campaign for the three remaining primaries — Puerto Rico, Montana, South Dakota — to rally in a state where its renegade primary was disallowed. Clinton, too, was in Florida, pressing to narrow her gap with Obama by having delegates counted from its contest in January.

Obama was just 65 delegates short of the 2,026 needed to clinch the nomination, after another superdelegate endorsement Wednesday and a pair of primaries the night before. Clinton thrashed him in Kentucky; he answered by winning Oregon.