Democrats return to Florida

Both Democratic presidential hopefuls are campaigning today in Florida -- the state that brings shudders to Democrats and the state that held a shadow primary in January.

But Barack Obama is pointing toward November, hoping to win Florida, one of the most crucial swing states.

"The American people are tired of being divided. They want to be brought together," he told a chanting, raucous crowd this afternoon at a Tampa arena.

Obama also noted that after Tuesday's primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, he has won a majority of all pledged delegates at stake in all 56 primaries and caucuses, with three contests to go.

"We are on the threshold of being to attain this nomination," Obama declared.

Otherwise, he gave his stock stump speech, but except for those who have been watching the campaign on TV, it was the first time Florida voters had heard it. He also has events scheduled in the Sunshine State on Thursday and Friday.

Clinton, on the other hand, is pressing her case to count the votes and delegates from that disputed primary, in which she won 50 percent of the 1.7 million votes, to 33 percent for Obama. She badly needs those votes and delegates, and those from the disputed primary in Michigan, to hold on to her faint hopes of wresting the nomination.

In Boca Raton, Clinton cast the fight on Florida and Michigan as part of the struggle for voting rights, for women and blacks, in the 20th century.

"Some gave their lives to the struggle for a more perfect union," she said. "To be a citizen of this country is to have the right and responsibility to help shape its future."

She also mentioned the disputed 2000 presidential election in Florida -- which many Democrats believe was stolen from Al Gore. She said both she and Obama have an "obligation to carry on this legacy and ensure that in our nominating process every voice is heard and every single vote is counted."

Both Democrats stayed away from the two states, after they flouted Democratic National Committee rules and held their contests early.