Sen. Barack Obama has all but gained the Democratic nomination, (even Clinton supporters are calling it) and last week his wife, Michelle, hinted of what she’d do if she were to become first lady.

At a fund-raiser billed as a women’s “Power Lunch” for Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Obama suggested she would take on women’s and family issues: “If I have the honor of becoming the next first lady, I want to continue these conversations like the ones I’ve had with these incredible women across the country. I want to ensure that their voices don’t get drowned out ever again in Washington.”

Obama also recalled that while campaigning with her family last weekend, “At one point someone asked Malia, our older daughter, what she enjoyed most about the weekend and she said, ‘being with my dad,’ and it nearly broke my heart.”

A group known as VoteBoth has been leading the charge for Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to team up on the Democratic ticket.

Although many have suggested that a joint ticket between the two is out of the question, VoteBoth asks, “Why stop at having a nominee who has the support of 51 percent of Democrats when we could have a ‘Dream Team’ ticket that has won 100 percent?”

“If Barack Obama is the nominee and he takes Senator Clinton as his vice president, you’ve got a ticket that’s already won 100 percent of the Democratic vote, that’s turned out a record number of Democratic voters and that has shattered fundraising records. A unity ticket is the way Democrats win in November.”

Following the comment (and controversy) Sen. Hillary Clinton made last week, one of her most important supporters, Charles Rangel, said that was “the dumbest thing she could ever have said.”

The Harlem congressman acknowledged candidates had their respective strengths and weaknesses. “In any campaign, there are groups of people that you know that you have and groups of people that you don’t,” he said. “And I don’t care what it is. White, black, Catholic, Protestant — pollsters and newspaper reporters, that’s all they know, and so they keep asking the same question over and over. I mean, this happens in campaigns.” Nevertheless, he said “anyone with common sense or reason” would conclude Obama had already shown he could win over white voters.

Rangel’s disapproval with Clinton’s comments didn’t stop him from introducing her at a fundraiser where he told the crowd of 1,100 that talk of Clinton leaving the race was nonsense: “When in the world did a winner ever quit?” Rangel said. “We know Hillary Clinton. We have worked with Hillary Clinton, and we need Hillary Clinton now more than ever,” he said.

John Conyers, a key Obama supporter, said he is “very worried” that Hillary Clinton’s continued campaign will make it more difficult to unify the Democratic Party this fall. He told fellow supporters that the best way to end the nomination race is with kindness: “Here’s how we close this thing down early. We are going to be real nice to anybody who did not support Sen. Obama. Real nice. Super nice. It’s the most difficult thing one can do in the political system: Beat the crap out of your opponent, and then be nice and friendly after you do it.”

Conyers refrained from commenting on Clinton’s remarks: “I haven’t heard it. I haven’t read it. Because I have to be nice to her. I just finished telling everyone that.”