‘Tough’ Obama wins seen

RALEIGH, N.C. — Sen. Barack Obama will win the Indiana and North Carolina primaries tomorrow, a top supporter and former Hillary Rodham Clinton backer declared yesterday, prompting the former first lady’s campaign to crow that if he doesn’t, she deserves to be the nominee.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew of Indiana, who switched his support in the Democratic presidential race from Mrs. Clinton to Mr. Obama last week, said on “Fox News Sunday” that his candidate faces “tough races,” but will win.

“You’re going to see him coming back,” Mr. Andrew said. “I think he’s going to win both because of this energy, this excitement, and because of the fact that people realize that he’s got some real plans here, not just political pandering.”

Clinton aides seized on the remark within minutes and sent reporters a YouTube clip. They also revived talk of a months-old Obama campaign spreadsheet that had predicted he would win Indiana by seven points.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the spreadsheet, which the campaign inadvertently sent to reporters, “was one of an infinite number of possibilities.”

“It is easy to see why the Obama campaign predicted victory in Indiana. Senator Obama has won each of the primaries in the states that border Illinois … and 25 percent of Hoosiers get their television from Illinois stations — a huge advantage,” the Clinton campaign wrote in an expectations-setting memo over the weekend.

As of last night, Mrs. Clinton has a 5.8 point average lead in Indiana while Mr. Obama has a seven-point average lead in North Carolina.

Tomorrow’s primaries won’t settle the party’s presidential nomination, but each candidate is aiming for a game-changer to shake up the final weeks of the campaign.

For Mr. Obama, an Indiana win would put him far closer to the needed number of delegates and would end his rough patch and allow him to regain the momentum that helped make him the front-runner in February.

For Mrs. Clinton, a big victory in Indiana would continue her winning streak and she could say Mr. Obama’s soaring status has crumbled. She’s also pushing hard to make North Carolina as competitive as possible. Should she keep the Tarheel state’s contest within a few points, she could argue Mr. Obama’s coalition of young and black voters isn’t enough to sustain his candidacy.

Either way, the party’s superdelegates — elected officials and party activists — will make the difference and deliver the party nod.

“I think the superdelegates are going to take a look, not at momentary snapshot polls, but they’re going to take a look at who’s run the kind of campaign that can bring about change in America and can actually govern after the election,” Mr. Obama said yesterday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

He added that Indiana is a “hard to gauge” “tossup” state.

“We’ve got more contests remaining, and I’m confident that Senator Clinton’s going to stay in until the very end, and then we’re going to have a decision about who’s going to be the nominee,” Mr. Obama said. “And I’m confident that, if I am the nominee, that I offer Democrats the best chance of winning in November.”

Both Democrats said they would work together to help to unify the party once the nomination is secured.

Mrs. Clinton said yesterday that superdelegates — fewer than 300 have not yet announced who they support — “have to make up their minds based on who they think would be the best president and the best candidate to go up against John McCain.”

“When the process finishes in early June, people can look at all of the various factors and decide who would be the strongest candidate,” she said.

Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said Mr. Obama seems to be “running scared” since he is “watching our candidate catch fire on the stump.”

The Clinton family has focused a lot of its efforts on North Carolina, spending $3.5 million on ads, more than it has spent in Indiana. Former President Bill Clinton had 15 campaign events scheduled here for yesterday and today.

North Carolina Gov. Michael F. Easley, a Clinton supporter, said he finds the tightening poll numbers “very encouraging when you look at just a couple weeks ago she was down 34 points here.”

The candidates traded barbs on energy and global warning yesterday.

Appearing for a town-hall forum hosted by ABC’s “This Week,” Mrs. Clinton talked about her proposal to suspend the federal tax on gasoline for the summer to provide relief from skyrocketing pump prices. She rejected arguments from economists who say it is a bad idea.

“I’m not going to put my lot in with economists, because I know if we get it right, if we actually did it right, if we had a president who used all the tools of the presidency, we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively,” she said.

An Obama supporter and donor in the audience said she has “pain at the pump” but feels “pandered to” and worries that the Clinton proposal encourages overconsumption instead of conservation in the face of climate change.

In response, Mrs. Clinton touted her plan for alternative energy investment and said she is talking about both short-term relief and a long-term plan. She also reminded the woman that Mr. Obama backed the Bush energy bill in 2005 while she opposed it.

NBC’s Tim Russert asked Mr. Obama whether the Clinton gasoline tax proposal was a “pander,” and the senator said yes. He also deflected criticism that he voted for such a “holiday” in Illinois, saying he “learned from a mistake” since consumers didn’t benefit from the plan.