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Barack Obama helps his daughter Sacha to roller skate |
Barack Obama geared for his latest attempt to knock resurgent rival Hillary Clinton out of the White House race Sunday, two days before their next fateful showdown at the polls.
The Democratic rivals duelled on separate Sunday morning television shows, launching a sprint to the Indiana and North Carolina primaries on Tuesday, with only eight contests now left in an exhausting nominating marathon.
Clinton pressed home her claim that despite trailing Obama in contests won and elected delegates, she would still be more likely to beat Republican John McCain in November's presidential election.
"When the process finishes in early June, people can look at all the various factors and decide who will be the strongest candidate," she said on ABC News at a town-hall meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana.
She said she felt "very comfortable" taking McCain on. "I feel like I am going to be able to stand up to Senator McCain."
Obama was appearing on NBC, hoping to renew his soaring message of hope after a miserable April blighted by political storms over racially tinged remarks by his former pastor Jeremiah Wright, and his values and patriotism.
Explaining his decision now to disown Wright, Obama said the controversial preacher had "put gasoline on the fire" last week with statements that were "fundamentally" at odds with his own vision of the country.
On his patriotism, Obama said "I will not allow people to challenge mine" in a general election campaign, stressing: "I love this country. It is what I have been fighting for, that America lives up to its values and its ideals."
Clinton, the clear underdog, is still buzzing from her campaign-saving Pennsylvania primary triumph last month, and is back in fight-to-the-death mode, stumping from dawn to midnight, in her latest last stand.
She is promising a "game-changer" on Tuesday, while her rival is more circumspect, as befits the front-runner, predicting only close races.
Conventional wisdom has it that Clinton needs to win rust-belt Indiana, at least, to keep her improbable comeback bid alive.
A double loss would likely spark a superdelegate exodus towards Obama, and leave her under intense pressure to quit.
But a surprise Clinton win in North Carolina, or a closer-than-expected loss, could cast fresh doubts over Obama's staying power with only six more contests after Tuesday.
In a pan-Pacific warmup for Indiana and North Carolina, Obama eked out a victory in Guam's caucuses by seven votes on Saturday, meaning the four pledged delegates up for grabs will likely be shared.
In the overall race, Obama, 46, appears to have a mathematical stranglehold.
But Clinton, 60, has used recent controversies to question his viability in a general election matchup with McCain.
Still, Obama has a clear lead in pledged delegates, who will formally nominate the Democratic Party champion in August. Clinton has little hope of catching up.
Obama also leads in the popular vote, and Clinton's hopes of reinstating millions of votes in Michigan and Florida, dumped over a scheduling conflict, have foundered.
Clinton's sole hope is to convince superdelegates, nearly 800 Democratic Party officials who can vote how they like at the party convention in Denver, Colorado, that Obama is an electoral liabilty.
But such a strategy could lead to a convention meltdown, risks alienating millions of young voters who have flocked to Obama, and would infuriate African American voters -- a vital Democratic powerbase.
Outrage over Wright may have frustrated Obama's hopes of expanding his coalition, so on Saturday, he released an ad rebutting claims he cannot connect with white "Reagan Democrat" swing voters vital in a general election.
"Politics didn't lead me to working people. Working people led me to politics," Obama said, making his "closing argument" in the ad.
Latest polls show a tight race in Indiana, a true battleground, packed with voters feeling the economic pinch but blanketed by the Illinois senator's hometown Chicago media market.
In North Carolina, Obama led by 20 points a few weeks ago, but the race has since narrowed, with him up only seven percent in the average of recent polls by RealClearPolitics.com.
The website's tally of the delegate race had Obama leading by 1,740 total delegates to 1,604, and closing on his rival's current 269-251 lead among superdelegates, with fewer than 300 superdelegates undeclared.
A total of 2,025 delegates is needed to capture the nomination.
