Obama meets with party governors

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., walks to the podium to talk with the media Friday in Jacksonville, Fla.

? As Sen. Barack Obama met with 16 Democratic governors in Chicago on Friday, the 50 state flags that surrounded them were arranged in an order that represented when the states joined the union, starting with Delaware and ending with Hawaii.

The seating arrangements at the table, however, took a decidedly more political approach.

At Obama’s side, Arizona Sen. Janet Napolitano and Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle received the choicest spots, while two former Sen. Hillary Clinton supporters from key battleground states – Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm – were also seated at the head table.

Featuring more than half of the nation’s 28 Democratic governors – including several widely viewed as potential running mates – the event was designed as a show of unity for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Obama also announced plans to campaign with Clinton on June 27, the day after a joint fundraising event in Washington. Late Friday, his campaign said it raised nearly $22 million in May and has $43 million in cash on hand.

As the Democrats showed signs of healing from their nomination fight, Obama’s battle with presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain remained intense amid charges of double talk from both sides.

In Ottawa, Canada, McCain criticized Obama’s primary campaign promise to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and even threaten to pull out of the pact.

“Now he claims: ‘I’m not a big believer in doing things unilaterally,”‘ McCain said, citing an upcoming interview the Democrat gave to Forbes magazine. The Arizona Republican said Obama’s previous remarks about NAFTA followed a pattern of “calculated efforts to re-invent positions to sound less irresponsible.”

During a stop in Florida, Obama accused McCain of pandering to the public in his new-found support for elimination of a longtime federal moratorium against offshore oil drilling, suggesting that new wells would do nothing to immediately lower gas prices.

At an evening fundraiser in Jacksonville, Obama also suggested Republicans plan to make voters “afraid” of him.

“He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name,” Obama said, according to a pool report of the event. “And did I mention he’s black? He’s got a feisty wife.”