It's another Tuesday, and two more states are holding primaries, but the outcome this time could truly be crucial to the Democratic presidential nomination battle between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
In all, 187 delegates are at stake in Indiana and North Carolina. Clinton, the junior senator from New York, knows that the results in these two states could shake up the race.
"This primary election on Tuesday is a game changer," Clinton said. "This is going to make a huge difference in what happens going forward. The entire country, probably even a lot of the world, is looking."
Judging by the numbers, Obama is the front-runner. The Illinois senator leads in pledged delegates and in states won, and is also ahead in the popular vote, if Florida and Michigan are not factored into the equation. Those states are being penalized for moving their primaries up in violation of party rules.
With Obama ahead in all these categories, Clinton has a lot on the line in Indiana and North Carolina.
"It would be a game changer if Clinton wins both North Carolina and Indiana by double-digit margins," said Bill Schneider, CNN senior political correspondent. "That would signal to the superdelegates that Democratic voters are having serious doubts about Obama. She needs big victories because it's so late in the game."
In all, only 404 pledged delegates remain to be chosen, and Tuesday's total of 187 makes it the biggest single primary day left. Clinton would need to win 70 percent of the remaining pledged delegates to catch up with Obama.
"That's very unlikely," Schneider said. "She stands a better chance of catching up in the total popular vote."
With neither candidate expected to win the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination by June 3, the end of the primary season, the final decision will most likely fall to the 796 so-called superdelegates: Democratic governors, members of Congress and party officials.
The race in Indiana is close. The CNN Poll of Polls released Monday suggests Clinton has a four-point lead. The poll, which averages the latest surveys in the state, had been tied for the last week.
Obama acknowledged to supporters Monday that Indiana's up for grabs.
"This is gonna be a tight election here in Indiana," he said in Evansville. "Every poll shows it is a dead heat. We need every single vote. So, you guys are pretty persuasive. I need you to tell your members that this is something worth fighting for and that they need to come out and vote, and vote for me."
In North Carolina, the CNN Poll of Polls released Monday indicates that Obama is up by eight points, down from a double-digit lead last week.
"If Obama wins both North Carolina and Indiana, that would be a game changer, but not the one Clinton is talking about," Schneider said. "The superdelegates would take that as a signal that the voters are ready to close the deal up with Obama."
Both candidates have spent the past two weeks shuttling between Indiana and North Carolina, each arguing to crucial working-class voters that their rival is out of touch when it comes to the pocketbook issues that are dominating the campaign.
Clinton is touting her plan to repeal the federal gas tax (about 18 cents a gallon for regular unleaded) to give Americans who are facing $4-per-gallon gas prices some relief this summer.
"I think you should have some immediate relief," she said Monday. "In fact, I think it's a false choice, as my opponent and others have been trying to say: 'Oh we can't do anything in the short run to help people, we can only worry about what we do in the long run.'
"People live in the short run. People get up every day and have to go fill up their tanks, they have to go the grocery store, so let's have immediate relief and long-term relief."
Clinton is also touting her populist message in a new commercial: "Hillary is the one who gets it. Hillary Clinton is the candidate who is going to fight for working people."
Obama calls the Clinton plan, and a similar proposal by presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain, a sham and pure pandering for votes.
"We can't afford to settle for a Washington where politicians only focus on how to win instead of why we should; where they check the polls before they check their gut; where they only tell us whatever we want to hear whenever we want to hear it," Obama said Monday. "That kind of politics may get them where they need to go, but it doesn't get America where we need to go. And it won't change anything."
His campaign slams the plan in a television commercial.
"Clinton aides admit it won't do much for you, but would help her politically," the narrator says. "So here's the choice: Clinton gimmicks that help big oil or Barack Obama, a real energy plan and a $1,000 middle-class tax cut to help families truly pay the bills."
This new disagreement over whether to repeal the federal gas tax is the latest clash in a long feud between the two rivals.
"The price of gas is same song, different verse of a year-long battle in which differences are few and matters of character loom large," said Candy Crowley, CNN senior political analyst. "Fueled by strong and steady support from blue-collar workers, Clinton has to position herself as the working-class champion, and tacitly -- and sometimes openly -- she is framing Obama as out of touch with ordinary people."
"The son of a single mother who once went on the food-stamp program, Obama finds it ironic that he has been painted as an elitist," Crowley added. "Though most economists agree with him, arguing against a gas tax holiday is tricky politically."
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