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WASHINGTON — Former Sens. John Edwards and Sam Nunn are on a list of potential running mates for Democrat Barack Obama, a congresswoman said Thursday, one day after she met with members of Obama’s team vetting possible candidates.

Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, said members of her caucus asked her to forward the names of Edwards and Nunn when she met Wednesday with Obama’s vice presidential search team. The vetting team, Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder, indicated the two were on the list.

“We’ve been brainstorming in the Congressional Black Caucus. Former Sen. Sam Nunn’s name has come up, as well as John Edwards’ name has come up among our CBC members. I reported that to them and they had both of those names on their list,” Kilpatrick said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Kilpatrick said she made several suggestions during the 45-minute meeting, including former Vice President Al Gore, Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland. Gore endorsed Obama in Detroit on Monday.

“I asked them what type of person the senator is looking for? And they said in general someone who could help him rebuild the country … talking about change. How we reinvest in America, get people back to work and reinforce our education system and bring the jobs back,” she said.

She declined to say which names were put forth by Kennedy and Holder during their meeting. The prominent Democratic attorneys have been meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to receive feedback on Obama’s potential running mate.

When Kilpatrick said Gore was her personal choice, “they had a smile on their face. They have a list of candidates. I think I may have been the first to do that. They didn’t say one way or the other.”

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator and John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, could help Obama appeal to white, working-class voters who largely favored Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primary and will be a critical voting bloc in the general election. The drawback of an Edwards pick is that he was the vice presidential nominee four years ago, while Obama’s campaign is about turning the page.

Edwards has said he is not seeking the vice presidency.

“I’d take anything he asked me to think about seriously, but obviously this is something I’ve done and it’s not a job that I’m seeking,” Edwards said last Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

Nunn would bring national security credentials to the ticket, having served as the longtime Armed Services Committee chairman. The former Georgia senator is a member of Obama’s foreign policy advisory group.

But Nunn has not been in office for more than a decade so he is not well-known nationally. He is a conservative Democrat who supported school prayer and opposed gays in the military, while Obama tends to have a more liberal viewpoint. Nunn will turn 70 in September.

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MADRID, Spain — Former U.S. Senator John Edwards has ruled out being Barack Obama’s running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket, according to interviews carried by two leading Spanish newspapers on Friday.

“I already had the privilege of running for vice president in 2004, and I won’t do it again,” Edwards was quoted by El Mundo as saying. El Pais, the country’s other leading daily, carried similar comments.

Edwards, who ran for vice president under Sen. John Kerry four years ago and was a presidential candidate in this year’s U.S. Democratic primaries, had been named as a possible running mate for Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Calls by The Associated Press to several Edwards aides went unanswered and independent confirmation of Friday’s reports was not immediately possible.

Edwards praised Obama as a “visionary,” the El Mundo interview said.

“We don’t live in a dream world and we have a lot of work to do,” Edwards said in comments the newspaper translated into Spanish. “But Obama’s potential is unlimited.”

Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, told the paper he would do anything possible to help the Obama campaign other than joining the ticket.

He also had kind words for vanquished Democratic hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose supporters have suggested she and Obama would make a “dream ticket” if the Illinois senator selects her as his running mate.

But Edwards said only Obama could make such a choice, and he urged him to pick somebody who shared his goals and governing style.

“Hillary Clinton is a great force in the Democratic party and in the United States, whether she aspires to the vice-presidency or to another position,” he was quoted as saying. “She is an extraordinary woman, and the role she will play depends only on her and Sen. Obama.”

While in Madrid, Edwards met briefly with Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and other senior officials. He spoke Thursday to a U.S. business group in Barcelona.

Edwards dropped out of the presidential race in late January following a spirited — if underfunded — populist campaign in which he pledged to stand up for the poor and powerless against corporate interests.

Both Obama and Clinton vigorously sought his endorsement, but he chose to stand on the sidelines until May, when he finally endorsed Obama.

Obama claimed the mantle as the likely Democratic nominee on Tuesday after the final primaries in Montana and South Dakota. Clinton is expected to formally concede on Saturday.

Obama will go up against another U.S. senator, John McCain of Arizona, in the November vote to succeed U.S. President George W. Bush.

Tuesday: Hillary Clinton acknowledges supporters during her Kentucky primary election night rally in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo)

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Unwilling to cede any territory after a blowout victory in the Kentucky primary and a substantial loss to Barack Obama in Oregon, Hillary Clinton headed to Florida Wednesday, hoping to make sure Sunshine State voters are not eliminated from the final Democratic presidential nomination count.

Clinton was to meet with Florida voters ahead of the May 31 Democratic National Committee Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting, which will determine whether to lift the penalty on Florida and Michigan Democrats for holding their primaries before Super Tuesday, Feb. 5.

Not to be outdone, Obama was also headed to Florida to hold a rally in Tampa with Reps. Robert Wexler and Kathy Castor before attending a town-hall meeting in Kissimmee and an evening fundraiser in Orlando.

The rules committee meeting comes just one day before the candidates vie in another primary on June 1, when Puerto Rico votes. South Dakota and Montana follow two days later in the final contests of the Democratic primary season.

Obama can capture the nomination by then if he wins enough of the remaining undeclared superdelegates. He confidently claimed a majority of pledged delegates for the Democratic nomination leading up to his win in Oregon Tuesday night.

Obama had won at least 1,649.5 pledged delegates in the 56 total primaries and caucuses, surpassing the 1,627 needed to claim a majority, without Florida and Michigan. His campaign quickly issued a memo to supporters saying Obama had reached a critical “milestone” in his march toward the nomination.

“We have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States,” Obama told voters at a packed rally in Des Moines, Iowa, the site of his Jan. 3 caucus triumph.

But with the results from Oregon, Obama was still shy of the 2,026 delegate majority needed to claim the nomination.

Clinton has repeatedly said that the race isn’t over until every vote is counted. Speaking to supporters in Kentucky, and again in a letter to supporters after her win, she questioned why every time pundits declare her candidacy over, she wins another state.

“We showed America that the voters know what the ‘experts’ will never understand — that in our great democracy, elections are about more than candidates running, pundits commenting, or ads blaring,” Clinton wrote. “They’re about every one of us having his or her say about the path we choose as a nation. The people of Kentucky have declared that this race isn’t over yet, and I’m listening to them — and to you.”

Hoping to push up her numbers — and the threshold needed to win the nomination — the Clinton camp has been calculating ways to gain an advantage from Florida and Michigan.

One proposal for the two states that has not been rejected by the Clinton campaign is a plan to count the 185 pledged Florida delegates and 128 pledged Michigan delegates as 0.5 each and distribute them according to the vote in January’s Florida and Michigan primaries.

Clinton won Florida, 50-33 percent over Obama. John Edwards won 14 percent in that vote, though none of the candidates campaigned there. In Michigan, Clinton was the only first-tier candidate whose name appeared on the ballot. She won 55 percent of the vote there compared to 40 percent who voted “uncommitted.”

Edwards has endorsed Obama and said he encourages his backers to pledge their support for the Illinois senator. If Florida delegates were counted at their full value, Clinton would have won 105 delegates to Obama’s 67 and Edwards’ 13. In Michigan, Clinton would have 73 pledged delegates compared to 55 who were uncommitted and would likely be given to Obama. The nominee would then need 2,209 delegates to win the nomination.

One proviso behind approval of the plan is that superdelegates in the state be counted as whole votes. Clinton has earned the support of at least eight Florida superdelegates compared to at least five for Obama. She has at least seven Michigan superdelegates compared to five for Obama from Michigan.

“I believe they’re going to count them,” McAuliffe predicted about the rules committee’s eventual decision on seating Florida and Michigan delegates. “We’re not going to disenfranchise two of our key states. And when that process is done, I do believe that the superdelegates are going to say, ‘Who is it that best can win the general election?’”

The Clinton campaign has argued that unlike Obama, Clinton can carry swing states that are essential to a general election victory. Kentucky and West Virginia, two states that Clinton won by at least 35 points, both voted Democratic in 1992 and 1996, but Republican in 2000 and 2004. The campaign notes that large percentages of Democratic voters in those states have said they’d rather stay home or vote for John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, than for Obama.

“That’s going to weigh on the minds of the superdelegates to say who can best go up against John McCain,” McAuliffe told FOX News.

But the Obama campaign has countered that Clinton’s claim to be the better general election candidate is specious. Campaign aides cite a March 2000 Pew survey that showed 51 percent of McCain primary voters said they would not vote for Bush, but the GOP obviously came together by November 2000. This, the argument goes, indicates that Democrats will do the same come this November.

As Obama gets closer to reaching the crucial mark for claiming the majority of delegates, his surrogates are urging Clinton to give up. The Service Employees International Union issued a statement after Obama’s Oregon victory, saying Clinton can’t beat the numbers.

“Now that (Obama) has a majority of the pledged delegates, the time has come for Democrats to unite around his candidacy said Anna Burger, SEIU Secretary-Treasurer. “While we congratulate Senator Clinton for running a campaign that focused the country on the critical issues we face together, it is time for her to join the effort to send Barack Obama to the White House.”

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WASHINGTON — Barack Obama collected the support of five of John Edwards’ Democratic convention delegates on Thursday, then gained the backing of four superdelegates and a large labor union as he marched steadily toward the party’s presidential nomination.

The fresh support brought Obama’s overall delegate total to 1,896, compared to 1,718 for his rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton. It takes 2,026 to clinch the nomination at the party convention in Denver this summer.

Edwards, who bestowed his long-sought endorsement on Obama on Wednesday, won 19 delegates before departing the presidential race in January.

Within hours, Obama picked up the backing of three of them from South Carolina, one in New Hampshire and one in Iowa.

In addition, three superdelegates — Reps. James McDermott of Washington, and Henry Waxman and Howard Berman of California — endorsed Obama.

“I believe now is the time to unite behind Barack Obama so we can be in the strongest place possible to win in November,” McDermott said.

Waxman said in a statement: “I have the greatest respect and admiration for Senator Clinton and former President Clinton … It is now clear, however, that the Democratic Party is nearing a broad consensus on our nominee.”

Edwards had been backed by the United Steelworkers Union, which announced it would now support Obama. The union has 600,000 active members, many of them blue-collar workers of the type that have favored Clinton in recent primaries.

Obama also picked up the personal endorsement of superdelegate Larry Cohen, the president of the Communication Workers of America union.

Campaigning in Rapid City, S.D., Clinton spoke for the first time about Edwards’ endorsement.

“I have a great deal of respect for Senator Edwards,” she said in response to reporters’ questions. “He and I have a lot in common … I imagine that Senator Edwards’ endorsement will be of some help to Senator Obama in Kentucky, but I think that what matters are the people who actually vote.”

Clinton said she had not spoken with Edwards but had spoken with his wife, Elizabeth, about the endorsement. Clinton declined to discuss their conversation.

The delegate and labor support came despite Obama’s overwhelming defeat in Tuesday’s primary in West Virginia, and suggested that Clinton’s argument that she would be a better general election candidate was not finding a receptive audience.

The former first lady is favored to win next week’s primary in Kentucky, while Obama is expected to win in Oregon the same day.

The delegates won by Edwards are not bound by his endorsement of Obama, but several said it is important to their decision.

“I will cast my vote for who John Edwards asks me to,” said Robert Groce, a South Carolina delegate won by Edwards.

Arlene Prather-O’Kane, of Cedar Falls, Iowa, said she is a backer of Edwards but “I will support who he is endorsing — which is Barack.”

With the primary season winding down, both Clinton and Obama have turned their attention increasingly to the superdelegates, the members of Congress and other party officials who have seats at the convention by virtue of their positions.

Obama long trailed Clinton among superdelegates, but overtook her last week, and has pulled further away despite suffering one of his worst defeats in the campaign in West Virginia.

Clinton spent the day campaigning in South Dakota, one of two states that closes out the primary season on June 3. Obama was home in Chicago.

Both rivals had avidly sought Edwards’ endorsement, particularly in the weeks after he dropped out of the race. The former North Carolina senator and 2004 vice presidential nominee had campaigned as a champion of the working class, and in the wake of his departure, Clinton consistently drew more blue-collar votes than Obama did.

“We are here tonight because the Democratic voters have made their choice, and so have I,” Edwards said Wednesday to thunderous applause from an audience in Grand Rapids, Mich. He said Obama “stands with me” in a fight to cut poverty in half within 10 years, a claim Obama confirmed moments later.

John Edwards joins Barack Obama at a rally Wednesday in Grand Rapids, Mich., where he endorsed his former Democratic rival. (AP Photo)

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John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama in Michigan Wednesday, ending months of speculation and adding to the growing consensus that Obama is on an irreversible path to become his party’s nominee.

The former Democratic presidential candidate and North Carolina senator said Obama was the candidate best able to build “one America,” as he spoke at length about the ongoing fight to end poverty, improve health care and take down the “wall” separating corporate America from working-class America.

“The reason I am here tonight is the Democratic voters of America have made their choice and so have I,” Edwards told a cheering crowd of more than 12,000 supporters at the Grand Rapids, Mich., arena. “There is one man who knows in his heart that it is time to create one America — not two — and that man is Barack Obama.”

The endorsement helped soften the blow after Obama lost the West Virginia primary to Hillary Clinton the night before by 41 points.

Edwards is not a superdelegate, but Obama and Clinton persistently have sought his endorsement ever since he dropped out of the primary contest at the end of January.

Until now, Edwards had given only scattered clues as to whom he might support. Even when his state of North Carolina voted last Tuesday, he kept his name out of the mix.

But Obama won North Carolina by double digits, and since then he has pocketed dozens more superdelegate endorsements.

Though Clinton scored a landslide victory Tuesday in West Virginia, it did little to change Obama’s daunting delegate lead.

The Clinton campaign tried to brush off the Edwards announcement. Campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe released a statement saying: “We respect John Edwards, but as the voters of West Virginia showed last night, this thing is far from over.”

Edwards showered just as much praise on Clinton Wednesday, saying she believes deeply in her push for universal health care, and that her against-the-odds fight for the nomination demonstrates her “strength and character.”

Obama’s loss Tuesday still highlighted the trouble he has winning over white, working-class voters. Edwards was a champion of working-class Americans during his campaign, and passed his fight to end poverty on to his rivals when he left the race in January.

Obama has since signed on to Edwards’ anti-poverty initiative, which he launched Tuesday with the goal of reducing poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.

Edwards praised him for that move Wednesday evening.

“This election is about taking down these walls that divide us,” Edwards said. “Barack Obama understands that to his core.”

Speaking after Edwards in the packed Van Andel Arena, Obama gave one of his most animated addresses in days, much of it devoted to fighting poverty. In America, he said, “you should never be homeless, you should never be hungry.”

As president, he vowed to “lift up every American out of poverty.”

Obama later told reporters on his plane that Edwards can help draw working-class voters and others to his campaign.

“I have no doubt that John Edwards can be extremely helpful to us campaigning in every demographic. But his passion and credibility when it comes to issues of poverty and the plight of working people in this country, I think, is a message that is powerful and one that fits with the kind of vision I have for America,” he said.

Former Edwards adviser Chris Kofinis also told FOX News the endorsement could help Obama gain the trust of blue-collar voters.

“It’s a significant event if for no other reason, he helps unify and move the party forward, and it really, I think, puts the Clinton campaign … behind the eight-ball,” he said.

Obama aides said the two spoke Tuesday night when Obama arrived in Michigan, and that Edwards decided Wednesday to endorse.

Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth, who has said she thinks Clinton has the superior health care plan, did not travel with him to Michigan and is not part of the endorsement.

Edwards still has 19 delegates to his name, according to Associated Press tallies — won in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Most of those delegates have already been selected, meaning they are technically free to support whomever they choose at the party’s national convention, regardless of Edwards’ endorsement.

Obama has a total of 1,887 delegates, leaving him just 139 delegates short of the 2,026 needed to clinch the nomination. Clinton has 1,718 delegates, according to the latest tally by The Associated Press.

David “Mudcat” Saunders, a chief adviser for Edwards on rural affairs during his presidential campaign, said the timing of the endorsement couldn’t be better given Obama’s resounding loss in West Virginia.

“For Barack Obama, I think he ought to kiss Johnny Edwards on the lips to kill this 41-point loss,” he added. “The story is not going to be the 41-point loss. It’s going to be Edwards’ endorsement.”

The Republican National Committee was quick to release a statement ridiculing the endorsement.

“Barack Obama and John Edwards share an out-of-touch agenda that would raise taxes on families while cutting funding for our troops. The only question is why didn’t Edwards endorse sooner? Edwards’ endorsement of a candidate he previously blasted as inexperienced, hypocritical, and lacking substance will not help Obama with voters looking for real change,” Chairman Robert M. “Mike” Duncan said in the statement.

FOX News’ Bonney Kapp and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) —Former Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said Sunday that Hillary Rodham Clinton probably didn’t choose her words carefully when she suggested Barack Obama was losing the white vote.

Edwards also hedged on whether he might still endorse one of his former rivals, but said he thinks Obama will be the nominee. He cautioned that in Clinton’s continued push for the nomination, she “has to be really careful” not to damage the Democratic Party’s prospects in November.

“I know how hard it is to get up and go out there every day, speak to the media, speak to crowds, when people are urging you to get out of the race. I mean, it’s a very hard place to be in. But she’s shown a lot of strength about that,” said Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who dropped out of the race in January.

“But I think the one thing that she has to be careful about … going forward, is that, if she makes the case for herself, which she’s completely entitled to do, she has to be really careful that she’s not damaging our prospects, the Democratic Party, and our cause, for the fall,” he said in a taped interview broadcast on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Clinton pledged to stay in the race after losing to Obama by a wide margin in North Carolina and barely winning in Indiana, which cemented his status as the front-runner. She touts her overall electability in a general election and, pointing to demographics, she recently told USA Today in an interview:

“There was just an AP article posted that found how Senator Obama’s support among working — hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how the, you know, whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

Some accused Clinton of reintroducing race into the campaign. Edwards seemed to give her a pass.

“She’s in a very tough, very competitive race that’s been going on a long, long time. And you know, she didn’t probably — I’m sure she feels like she didn’t choose her words very well there,” he said.

“What I think is, at the end of the day, when this is over — and I think it is likely, certainly, at this point, that Senator Obama will be the nominee — that the Democrats will unite. We’ll all be behind our nominee. And we’ll be out there campaigning our hearts out,” Edwards said.

David Axelrod, Obama’s chief campaign strategist, disputed Clinton’s assertion.

Axelrod said Obama and Clinton split Indiana voters who make $50,000 a year or less, and that Obama performed better among non-college-educated voters there. He said the same was true in North Carolina.

“The words weren’t well chosen, but the thesis was wrong,” Axeldrod said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Meanwhile, on the subject of an endorsement, Edwards said he “might” still, but “I don’t think it’s a big deal, to be honest with you.”