Obama weighs his next move, maps out strategy

CHICAGO -- Barack Obama's campaign on Wednesday sought to increase pressure on Hillary Rodham Clinton to wrap up the drawn-out Democratic nomination race as it mapped out a general-election strategy that will involve early campaigning in battleground states that have already held primaries.

"We're going to put a lot of states in play," said David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager. He suggested this would include stepped up efforts in Florida and Michigan "to get them up to par with the other states."

Neither Obama nor Clinton campaigned in those two states because of Democratic party sanctions on them for holding earlier-than-authorized primaries. The seating of delegates from those states remains a matter of dispute between the two camps.

But in the meantime, neither Obama nor Clinton has actively campaigned there.

Obama's drive to nail down the party nod was buoyed with a double-digit win in North Carolina and a stronger-than-expected run in Indiana on Tuesday, where he almost overcame rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Obama was expected to compete for the six remaining Democratic contests, which offer a total of 217 delegates, but to also turn attention to general election states, aides said.

Obama was enjoying a rare down day in his hometown before returning to Washington, D.C., late Wednesday.

He was expected to travel later in the week to Oregon, where he appears to hold the advantage, and then head to the Appalachian coal-states of West Virginia and Kentucky, where Clinton seems to have the edge.

Likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain has "run free for some time now" because of Democratic preoccupation with the ongoing primary fight, said Obama strategist David Axelrod. "I don't think we're going to spend time solely in primary states," he said. "We have multiple tasks here."