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Indiana, NC To Settle Largest Remaining
Contests
by The Associated Press
Posted: May 6, 2008 - 8:00 am ET
(Evansville, Indiana) Like
marathoners on their second wind, Barack Obama and Hillary
Rodham Clinton raced for advantage until the final hours in
the campaign for the Indiana and North Carolina primaries
Tuesday.
Voters in both states are
settling the largest remaining contests in a Democratic
presidential nomination struggle that has dragged improbably
into spring.
There was little if any
expectation that the primaries would settle the big, messy
picture. Both Clinton and Obama predicted they'd still be
campaigning in June.
Clinton, at her scrappiest when
her campaign is on the line - which it has been for weeks -
brought a full-throated roar to a series of events in a day of
frantic travel spilling into the wee hours Tuesday.
A wealthy inside-Washington
veteran, the former first lady worked hard to make common
cause with blue-collar voters crucial to Tuesday's outcome.
"I do see you, I do hear
you," she told supporters in Merrillville, Ind., speaking
outside the local fire station as a dozen firefighters looked
down on her from the fire truck behind her.
She pressed her proposal for a
federal gas tax holiday that Obama has dismissed as a gimmick,
one of the few issues where the two Democrats clearly diverge.
"It's a stunt," the
Illinois senator said in Evansville. "It's what
Washington does."
Obama's stance was backed up by
230 economists who released a letter Monday opposing the
temporary tax break, which would take 18.4 cents off the price
of a gallon if consumers got the full savings at the pump. The
signers included four Nobel Prize winners and economic
advisers to presidents of both parties.
Clinton shrugged off the
blistering reviews from policy makers, industry experts and
editorial writers.
"I believe we should start
standing up for the majority of Americans who are paying the
outrageous gas prices," Clinton said. "I'm ready to
take on the oil companies."
Obama hurtled from Indiana to
North Carolina and back.
"I want your vote. I want
it badly," he pleaded on a factory floor in Durham, N.C.,
one of many settings drawing the working-class voters he
needs.
Obama capped his day with a
rain-soaked, get-out-the-vote rally in Indianapolis featuring
Motown legend Stevie Wonder, followed by a visit to a factory
for the midnight shift change.
Standing at the gates outside
the Auto Components Holding plant, partly owned by Ford, Obama
shook hands one-by-one with employees as they left. "If I
got your vote, it would mean a lot," Obama told them.
"We need all the help we
can get here. They're trying to close us down," one
worker told Obama.
The plant, once owned entirely
by Ford, makes steering components. It employs 1,200 workers -
roughly half of them on the Ford payroll - and is scheduled to
be shut down at the end of 2010, said Jim Lewis, United Auto
Workers president at the plant.
Addressing a group of
employees, Obama said, "What you do here - this
represents the best in America." He said he recognized
the situation with layoffs and plant closing and promised to
be an advocate for workers if elected president. "We're
not going to reverse it overnight," he added.
"I need everybody's
help," Obama said. "This is going to be a close
race."
At a late-night rally in
Evansville, Clinton spoke to a sparse crowd that filled only
half of a stuffy high school gymnasium. Nevertheless, she
seemed just as animated as she had at her first stop of the
day, and spent time after her event signing autographs, posing
for pictures and shaking hands.
"Jobs, jobs, jobs,"
she stressed before the crowd waving Clinton campaign signs
with union seals on them.
Clinton predicted a record
turnout in Indiana and noted that this is the first time in 40
years that the state will have an impact on the presidential
election.
"It's way past time,"
she said.
"What we need to do
together is understand that this is not about me, this is
about you," Clinton added. "Solution, not speeches.
Results, not rhetoric."
Dual victories by Obama would
all but knock Clinton out of the race. Polls, however, have
found a small edge for the New York senator in Indiana. Obama
remains the favorite in North Carolina, though his lead has
shrunk.
Altogether, 187 delegates are
at stake in the two states, nearly half the pledged delegates
left with eight primaries to go before voting ends in a month.
North Carolina and Indiana
cannot mathematically settle the nomination. A candidate needs
2,025 delegates to win, and Obama had 1,745.5 to Clinton's
1,608 Monday.
The key to the nomination is
held by superdelegates, party leaders who aren't bound by the
outcome of state contests. About 220 are still undecided.
Despite a rash of recent
troubles and his loss to Clinton in the big Pennsylvania
primary two weeks ago, Obama has continued to nibble away at
Clinton's lead in superdelegates. He picked up two from
Maryland on Monday, leaving him trailing Clinton 269-255.
Clinton's main hope is to
persuade most of the still-neutral superdelegates to disregard
his lead in the delegate chase and support her instead. Her
campaign also hopes to get a boost by getting delegates from
Michigan and Florida seated.
Obama easily outspent Clinton
in both states while outside supporters threw big money into
the contest, too.
The Service Employees
International Union, which is backing Obama, spent about $1.1
million in the state, much of it on ads. The American
Leadership Project, which has received most of its money from
labor groups backing Clinton, spent more than $1 million on
ads in Indiana that questioned Obama's economic policies.
©365Gay.com 2008
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