Barack Obama isn’t likley to proclaim himself the “presumptive nominee” when he comes to Tampa Wednesday, although his campaign contends the race will be all but over after the Oregon and Kentucky primaries.

Nor will he advocate ending the conflict over Florida and Michigan by seating the full delegations from those states, according to comments from a campaign spokesman.

Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have quarrelled today over whether the primary race is, in effect, over.

The argument stems from the fact that after tomorrow’s primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, Obama is virtually certain to have a majority of the available pledged delegates—that is, delegates whose votes are determined by the outcomes of primaries and caucuses in their states. Obama believes the unpledged “superdelegates” shouldn’t reverse the outcome of the primaries and caucuses.

Obama doesn’t quite say that means he is or should be comsidered the nominee—probably because he doesn’t want to anger Clinton supporters who don’t want to see her shouldered aside in the race. But he comes close.

In an email to supporters, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe today called it “a major milestone” in the race, and Obama has called it “an important day in the campaign.”

That’s the kind of rhetoric he’s likely to use in Tampa, on his first campaign day after the two primaries, said spokesman Josh Earnest. Earnest said Obama isn’t likely to use the words “presumptive nominee.”

Still, interpreting the Obama comments as a declaration of victory, Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson shot back in a news release that Obama’s “plan to declare himself the Democratic nominee tomorrow night ... is a slap in the face to the millions of voters in the remaining primary states and to Senator Clinton’s 17 million supporters.

“Premature victory laps and false declarations of victory are unwarranted,” Wolfson said. “Declaring ‘mission accomplished’ does not make it so.”

Obama also isn’t ready to announce that he would accept full seating of the Florida and Michigan delegations, even though it’s looking less and less likely that would endanger his chances of getting a delegate majority. Seating both delegations in full would give Clinton a net gain of 58 delegates, less than a third of his current lead, and some political experts say that would end a controversy that is hurting Obama.

But Earnest said advocating ending the sanctions against the two states that held too-early primaries wouldn’t end the issue, but would “prompt more questions, with implications for Democratic contests down the road, the future of the party.’

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