By Jeff Mason
PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - Barack Obama will make asymbolic trip to Iowa on Tuesday, revisiting the state thatlaunched his underdog bid for the White House on a day he hopeswill put him over the top in the number of delegates needed tohelp clinch the nomination.
The planned Iowa rally, which the campaign announced onSaturday, will take place as polls close in Oregon and Kentuckyin voting the Obama campaign believes will bring the Illinoissenator a step closer to defeating his rival, New York Sen.Hillary Clinton.
Polls suggest Obama will win Oregon handily while Clintonis expected to prevail in Kentucky by a wide margin.
But the Obama campaign expects that when the results fromboth primary contests are added to his existing tally, he willhave racked up more than half of the pledged delegates awardedin the state-by-state contests, making him the likely winner inthe battle to become his party's nominee to face RepublicanJohn McCain in the November election.
"It will be (a) nice reunion with everybody who helped usget started," Obama told reporters during a stop at anamusement park outside Portland, speaking about the Iowa trip.
Obama said earlier this week his campaign would declare onTuesday it had won the majority of pledged delegates.
Neither Obama nor Clinton will have enough pledgeddelegates to lock up the nomination, but Obama sayssuperdelegates -- party leaders and elected officials withtheir own vote in the process -- should back the leader inpledged delegates.
The nominating contests began in January in Iowa, whereObama beat Clinton, a former first lady who was the nationalfront-runner then and had an aura of inevitability.
Iowa has a history of being closely divided betweenDemocrats and Republicans in the presidential race and isexpected to be an important battleground state in November.
An Obama aide played down the idea that the Iowa trip wouldbe a "victory celebration."
"This is meant to be a look to what's ahead," said theaide, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Iowa is a keygeneral election state," the aide said, noting it had gone forRepublican President George W. Bush in 2004 and former VicePresident Al Gore, the Democratic nominee in 2000.
'NOT READY FOR IT TO BE OVER'
Clinton has given no sign she plans to exit the race beforethe final voting contests on June 3 in Montana and SouthDakota. Puerto Rico votes on June 1.
"There's some people who've been saying for months thatthis is over and every time they say it the voters come backand say, 'Oh no, it's not. We're not ready for it to be over,'"Clinton said while visiting a distillery in Loretto, Kentucky.
"You don't quit on people and you don't quit until youfinish what you started," she said.
Clinton argues her strength in big states like Ohio andPennsylvania that may be critical in a presidential electionmakes her the best candidate against McCain.
But for two straight days she found herself sidelined asObama sparred with McCain and Bush after the president said ina speech in Israel on Thursday that some politicians wouldpursue the "false comfort of appeasement" by talking withmilitant groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah and with Iran.
Obama has said he would meet with Iranian President MahmoudAhmadinejad, but would not talk with Hamas because thePalestinian group is not a state and does not recognize Israel.
Bush did not mention Obama, but the Illinois senatoraccused the president and McCain of fear-mongering.
"Understand that George Bush had a policy of not talking toNorth Korea and not talking to Iran and over the last eightyears, they are stronger as a consequence of George Bush'sforeign policy," Obama said at a rally in Roseburg, Oregon, onSaturday.
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement: "BarackObama's pledge to unconditionally bring Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tothe world stage isn't 'new politics,' it's incredibly weakjudgment."
McCain, an Arizona senator, had breakfast in New York withthe city's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, a political independentwho has been mentioned as a possible running mate for eitherMcCain or Obama.
Asked what the two discussed, McCain spokeswoman BrookeBuchanan said only, "They had a lovely breakfast."
The campaign trail was roiled by news that Democratic Sen.Edward Kennedy was hospitalized after suffering a seizure athis Cape Cod vacation home. All three candidates expressedhopes for his speedy recovery.
(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan in New York and EllenWulfhorst in Loretto, Kentucky; writing by Jeff Mason and CarenBohan; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visitReuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online athttp:/blogs.reuters.com/trail08/ )