US:BARACK OBAMA and Hillary Clinton woke up yesterday morning in hotels just a block away from one another in Indianapolis, appeared simultaneously for an hour on rival television talk shows, spent the afternoon at separate events in a town two hours away and were due to address the same dinner last night.
The candidates' precise shadowing of one another reflects the closeness and the high stakes of tomorrow's primary in Indiana, which Mr Obama has described as a "tie-breaker" and Mrs Clinton as a "game-changer".
Mrs Clinton has long been trailing Mr Obama in North Carolina, which also votes tomorrow but she must win Indiana if she is to pursue her narrow prospect of becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.
Mr Obama believes that if he wins Indiana, which borders his home state of Illinois, he can finally shut down the 15-month Democratic race.
"If we win Indiana, we've got this nomination," he told an audience in Indianapolis last week.
Mr Obama has yet to lose a state that borders Illinois, but Indiana is a complicated economic and cultural mix of urban voters in the industrialised northwest near Chicago and rural conservatives in the southern part of the state that borders Kentucky.
Mr Obama is strong in the northwest and in Indianapolis, two areas with a high concentration of the African-Americans and highly educated white voters that have been his most reliable supporters throughout the campaign. Mrs Clinton fares better in small towns and among older voters and those without a college degree.
The Illinois senator will remain the favourite to win the Democratic nomination even if he loses in Indiana, but tomorrow's primary will be an important test of his appeal to white, working-class voters and of the impact of the renewed controversy over his former pastor Jeremiah Wright.
Mr Obama last week disowned Rev Wright after the pastor defended his contention that the 9/11 attacks represented America's "chickens coming home to roost" and his suggestion that the US government may have introduced Aids to kill people of colour.
Mr Obama said yesterday that he never sought the pastor's counsel on political issues and would "absolutely not" seek his advice if he gets to the White House, adding that Rev Wright's comments about the US "over the last several months and over the last several years . . . are contrary to what I stand for and who I am".
Indianans, who call themselves Hoosiers, tell pollsters that their primary concern is the economy and Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton have clashed in recent days over how to deal with rising petrol prices, which affect almost everyone in the state. Mrs Clinton wants to suspend the federal petrol tax for the summer, a move Mr Obama dismisses as a "typical Washington gimmick" that would save the average consumer only 30 cents a day.
Mrs Clinton hopes her support for the tax holiday will reinforce her image as a tough, pragmatic politician who is more attuned to the concerns of working- and middle-class Americans than Mr Obama.
Although she has little chance of regaining the lead among pledged delegates before the final primaries in early June, Mrs Clinton hopes that the "super delegates" who could decide the race will be swayed by recent polls that show her as a stronger candidate than Mr Obama against Republican John McCain.
At a town hall meeting in Indianapolis yesterday, the former first lady again ruled out dropping out of the race before all remaining states have voted, brushing aside the suggestion that it is now too late for her to catch up.
"When the process finishes in early June, people can look at all the various factors and decide who would be the strongest candidate," she said.
With polls showing her ahead in Indiana and closing on Mr Obama in North Carolina, tomorrow could provide Mrs Clinton with an important boost, but her more superstitious friends may see a grisly omen in the outcome of Saturday's Kentucky Derby.
Throughout last week, Mrs Clinton was encouraging supporters to back Eight Belles, a filly who was given only an outside chance to defeat the favourite, Big Brown. Eight Belles ran a gallant race, putting in a remarkable finish but came in second, shattering both ankles as she crossed the line so she had to be put down by vets. Big Brown won the race.
