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It was a breezy, sunny day this week in lush southwest Alabama. McCain was surrounded by friendly African-American women serenading him with spirituals as they rode a ferry across the muddy Alabama River.

McCain, sporting his Navy cap and sunglasses, even scampered to the bridge to take a turn at the wheel, news cameras clicking away to record his moment as helmsman.

Perfect image - the maverick Republican wooing a voter group that few in his party bother to court.

Except that McCain, the longtime scourge of congressional "earmark" spending who has promised to veto every bill with earmarks if he's elected president, was aboard a ferry that's financed by a $2 million earmark in a 2005 spending bill.

"Her pitch was that she had just had a substantial victory in Pennsylvania and her campaign had raised quite a bit of money because of it," said Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma. "There wasn't a hard push or a hard sell. She asked me what are some of the things she needs to be talking about. I just told her the No. 1 issue is the economy."

Boren remains uncommitted but noted "it's really important to me how my district voted" - for Clinton.

Clinton also met with Reps. Ike Skelton of Missouri, Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, Ron Klein of Florida and Brad Ellsworth of Indiana, among others.

Clinton's presidential campaign has spent months playing defense while Barack Obama whittled away at her lead in superdelegate endorsements. Her supporters urged undecided superdelegates to hold off on endorsing a candidate - if they weren't ready to back her. Let the primaries play out, they said, and decide which candidate has the best chance to win in November after all the contests are over.

The co-chairs of the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws committee sent members a memo Friday announcing a meeting May 31 to consider the idea.

The committee stripped Michigan and Florida of their national convention delegates because they held primaries too early. DNC members in Michigan and Florida have filed challenges to restore the delegates.

Under the challenges, all superdelegates from both states would get to vote. The pledged delegates would only count for half votes.

Hillary Rodham Clinton won both contests and has been pushing for the delegates to be seated.

Obama criticizes high gas prices as Clinton raps him on campaign donations ... McCain joins former rival Huckabee in Arkansas on campaign tour ... Clinton steps up lobbying of undecided superdelegates after winning Pennsylvania primary ... DNC panel schedules hearing to review challenges to loss of Michigan and Florida delegates ... Poll: Obama, Clinton running tight race in the Hoosier State ... Reid, Pelosi send word to Democratic superdelegates: Make up your minds

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Obama presses on gas prices

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Democrat Barack Obama on Friday blamed high gasoline prices on Washington and a political establishment, including his rivals for the presidency, that he says hasn't stood up to oil companies.

The time that Obama and Clinton will devote to these states is another price of their protracted primary battle, which already has consumed millions of campaign dollars and hurt their images as they batter each other - without McCain lifting a finger.

Democratic leaders who set the election calendar assumed their nominee would have been decided by early February. The survivor could have spent the spring shoring up the party's base and concentrating on the GOP opponent in the roughly 14 competitive states that will decide the next president.

That person certainly would not have spent April and May campaigning in Indiana, Kentucky, Montana and South Dakota. North Carolina probably would have been avoided, too.

Those states went solidly Republican in recent presidential elections, and Democratic strategists don't list them among the ones they need to win in November. Yet Obama and Clinton will spend weeks and big sums of money in those states as they try to end a nominating process that both say will last until June 3 or later.

The Straight Talk Express stopped by a Little Rock strip mall as the Republican presidential candidate campaigned in Little Rock on Friday. The bus pulled up in front of the Whole Hog Cafe for a late lunch - pulled pork or plate of brisket prominent on the menu.

McCain, joined by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and their wives, even took a trip behind the counter to check out the giant smokers where the meat is cooked and see how the seasonings are prepared.

"Is that a trade secret, your dry rub?" McCain asked. "I think I'm going to have to change my ways."

He departed with a takeout bag of ribs.

McCain said that early in the GOP campaign, they had a lot of time to get to know each other when both were dismissed as the longest of long shots. Chatting with reporters on the Straight Talk Express campaign bus, McCain recalled the days when they were relegated to the most distant ends of the podium in the early Republican debates, drawing few questions from the moderators.

"Governor Huckabee and I had lots of time to chat with each other," McCain laughed. "We became friends on the campaign trail."

They were joined on the bus by their wives, Cindy McCain and Janet Huckabee.

Huckabee, hugely popular with social conservatives, has been mentioned as a potential running mate for McCain, who needs to shore up his support among conservative Republicans.

"The candidates with the Washington experience - my opponents - are good people. They mean well, but they've been in Washington for a long time and even with all that experience they talk about, nothing has happened," Obama said at a local gas station. "This country didn't raise fuel efficiency standards for over 30 years."

The result, the Illinois senator said, is that consumers are suffering.

"So what have we got to show for all that experience?" Obama asked. "Gas that's approaching $4 a gallon."

Clinton, who is challenging him for the Democratic presidential nomination, derided his promise to take on special interests.

Lambert oversaw a huge expansion of the state's court system in his nearly 10 years as chief justice. A Republican in a non-partisan job, he also engaged in political battles that sometimes left him at odds with leading Democrats and Republicans alike.

Within hours of Lambert's announcement, several justices on the state's highest court expressed an interest in holding the $137,832-a-year job that only four men have held since the Supreme Court was formed in 1976.

Lambert, 59, of Mount Vernon, announced his resignation in a news release and declined to comment further.

"We have made great progress in the last decade to improve Kentucky courts and make them more responsive to the needs of Kentucky's families and children," he said in his statement.