Opinion: Barack Obama, stumping in S.D., casts Hillary Clinton as a team player

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Barack Obama not only spent today far, far away from the trench warfare being waged in Washington over whether -- and in what proportion -- to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations at the Democratic National Convention later this year, he was doing his best to stay above the fray.

The Times’ Michael Finnegan reports that as Obama campaigned in South Dakota in advance of the state’s Tuesday primary, he had nothing but kind words for Hillary Clinton, praising her for running a ‘magnificent race’ in their marathon battle for the Democratic presidential nod.

‘I know that some Democrats are worried that, well, this campaign went on a long time, and maybe you can’t bring the party together; the Clinton supporters and the Obama supporters, they’re going after each other,’ Obama told a few thousand people gathered at a rodeo fairgrounds in Rapid City.

‘Let me tell you something. First of all, we’re going to come together, because Sen. Clinton is an outstanding public servant. She has run a magnificent race. And she is going to be working on behalf of the Democratic Party, as I will be.’

Spoken like the presumptive nominee that he and his camp are anticipating he soon will be -- a designation that Clinton and her forces continue to do their best to forestall.

-- Don Frederick