Pat Dollard

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Voters in North Carolina and Indiana weighed in on the fates of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton Tuesday, in the most significant contests left in their presidential showdown.

Opinion polls suggested Obama was positioned to win in North Carolina and Clinton could take Indiana, in a split which would keep her long-odds hopes of a comeback alive, but raise new fears of deep splits in the Democratic Party.

Voters lined up before sunrise in midwestern Indiana. Democratic senator Evan Bayh, a Clinton backer, late Friday predicted a record turnout in his rust-belt state.

The day’s voting closes in North Carolina at 8:30 pm (0030 GMT), with a combined total of 187 pledged delegates on offer in the two states.

Clinton refused to say how she would perform, saying “I don’t make predictions” as she toured the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway auto racing circuit, and accepted the endorsement of Indy 500 driver Sarah Fisher.

“We need to get on track in America and get toward the finish line and change this country,” Clinton said.

Her campaign chairman Terry McAullife however said he thought she would take Indiana and would fight on through the remaining six contests of the Democratic marathon.

Obama, who wants a good showing to shake off a grim month of April, was again up before dawn, after shaking hands at a shift change in an auto manufacturing plant in Indiana until past midnight on Monday.

“I think it’s going to be close. I don’t think anybody knows exactly what’s going to happen,” he said, holding two campaign stops in Indiana, before heading to North Carolina where he will hold what he hopes will be a victory party.

Whatever the outcome, neither candidate can win enough delegates Tuesday to secure the Democratic presidential nomination.

But victory or defeat in either state could sway the “superdelegates” — Democratic Party bosses set to cast deciding votes in the stalemate.

Clinton meanwhile raised the prospect of carrying on the race, after the end of the nominating calendar, a scenario many Democrats fear could split the party and hand victory to Republican John McCain in November.

Looking ahead to June, she said “if we haven’t done it already, we are going to have to resolve Florida and Michigan. They were legitimate elections, people came out and voted.”

She said the true finish line of the presidential race was 2,209 delegates — including Florida and Michigan, and not 2,025 as has long been assumed.

“It’s 2,209,” she said.

Clinton currently trails Obama in nominating contest wins and pledged delegates. His campaign says he is now only 273 votes short of capturing the Democratic Party nod.

Clinton’s camp admits she cannot overtake the Illinois senator in the count of pledged delegates who will formally anoint the nominee at the Democratic convention in August.

So she is trying to persuade superdelegates that her rival would be a liability against McCain.

Obama on Monday dismissed Clinton’s arguments, despite a damaging April, including more racially tinged remarks by his former pastor, which has sucked some of the euphoria out of his campaign.

“Once you’re the front-runner, then it is, I think, the obligation of the candidates who are behind to try to whack you over the head, and the press is happy to oblige,” Obama said.

“So there was a kitchen-sink strategy employed that was throwing a whole bunch of stuff at me.

“But if you think about it … the fact that we’re still standing here and still moving forward towards the nomination, I think, indicates the degree to which the core message of this campaign is the right one.”

In Indiana, a rolling average of polls by RealClearPolitics.com gave Clinton a five-point lead over Obama — about 49 percent to 44. In North Carolina, which has a large black population, Obama was ahead 50 to 43 percent.

RealClearPolitics gives Obama 1,491 pledged delegates from all the races so far to Clinton’s 1,337. Neither can reach the winning line of 2,025 without backing from the superdelegates, party officials free to vote either way.

(AFP)