By LIZ SIDOTI, Press Writer

GREENVILLE, N.C. - Resolute rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama straddled North Carolina and Indiana on Monday on the eve of a pair of crucial primaries in the unceasing contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Both predicted the race would stretch into June, regardless of Tuesday’s outcomes.

Seeking an edge in the final hours, Clinton plugged her summertime gas-tax holiday proposal at every stop and released a new TV ad in both states that assailed Obama for his opposition to it. The ad called her “the candidate who is going to fight for working people.”

“He is attacking Hillary’s plan to give you a break on gas prices because he doesn’t have one,” says the ad. “Hillary wants the oil companies to pay for the gas tax this summer — so you don’t have to.”

Obama has accused Clinton of pandering with the proposal, and many economists are against it.

With polls showing Clinton chipping away at Obama’s advantage here, both candidates darted back to North Carolina for some last-minute campaigning. It was a brief diversion from the more competitive Indiana, where each planned to return by nightfall. At stake Tuesday were 187 Democratic delegates.

“Let’s listen to what the people are telling us … because if we listen, we will hear this incredible cry,” Clinton said, keeping up her populist pitch before a couple hundred people in a gymnasium at Pitt Community College.

Elsewhere, Obama campaigned among white, blue-collar workers in Evansville, Ind., before flying to North Carolina. The Democratic front-runner noted that the polls are very tight and the day’s schedule had him “bouncing back and forth” between the two states.

“We’re working as hard as we can and I desperately want every single vote here, in North Carolina and in Indiana,” the Illinois senator said during an appearance at a construction site.

In both states, Obama was trying to recover from a rough patch and put Clinton away after a difficult 16-month fight that has split the party. The former first lady, meanwhile, hoped to hang in the race with a win in one, maybe two states. Her aides lowered expectations for a victory in North Carolina, where Obama is favored, but sounded more optimistic about Indiana, where demographics seem to tilt in her direction.

Obama is ahead in the hunt for convention delegates — 1,743.5 to 1,607.5, according to an Associated Press count Monday — but Clinton senses an opening after a win in Pennsylvania last month. Still, the delegate math works to Obama’s advantage, and it will be hard for Clinton to overtake him.

Nevertheless, TV ads, automatic phone calls and mailed literature flooded both Indiana and North Carolina in the run up to Tuesday while thousands of volunteers for both candidates canvassed countless neighborhoods knocking on doors. With far more cash on hand, Obama outspent Clinton by an estimated $4 million to $5 million — roughly a third more — on TV ads in both states combined.

Both candidates had punishing schedules in the final hours. Clinton was holding five events across the two states, while Obama was jetting from Indiana to North Carolina and back again over a several-hour span. Both began their day at dawn and would end it well into the night.

In the interviews, Obama and Clinton expressed confidence in their chances of winning the Tuesday contests but would not predict that voting this week would be decisive enough to end the primary fight.

On NBC’s “Today” show, Obama predicted that after the final contests June 3 in Montana and South Dakota, “We will be in a position to make a decision who the Democratic nominee is going to be,” he said. “I will be the Democratic nominee.”

Clinton refused to predict Tuesday’s results, but said her campaign has made up some ground after falling behind.

“I think we’ve closed the gap,” she said on CNN’s “American Morning.”

Much of the exchange Monday centered on proposals Clinton has embraced to give drivers some relief from soaring gas prices. Clinton pushed her plan for a summer suspension of the gasoline tax, which she would pay for with a windfall profit tax on oil companies.

“I think a lot of people don’t understand my plan,” Clinton responded on CBS’ “The Early Show.” “I want to the oil companies to pay that $8 billion this summer instead of having the money come out of the pockets of consumers and drivers.”

The last-minute campaigning came as a new poll showed that most people are being squeezed by higher gas prices.

Six in 10 say gas prices have caused financial hardship for their family, including one in five who said it is causing severe problems, according to a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll released on Monday. That’s actually a bit fewer than the number who said the cost of gasoline was hurting them a year ago.

Eight in 10 said they consider it likely they’ll be paying $4 a gallon sometime this year, and more than four in 10 said they expect prices to hit $5 per gallon.

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Associated Press Writer Tom Raum in Evansville, Ind., and Alan Fram in Washington contributed to this report.

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

INDIANAPOLIS - Barack Obama likened Hillary Rodham Clinton to President Bush for threatening to “totally obliterate” Iran if it attacks Israel and called her gas-tax holiday a gimmick as he tried to fend off her challenge ahead of two pivotal Democratic primaries.

Clinton, in turn, stood by both her comment on Iran and her tax proposal as she gave chase to the front-runner in Indiana and North Carolina.

The competitors squabbled over the issues — one foreign, one domestic — from a short distance, first during separate appearances on Sunday news shows and then as they courted voters for Tuesday’s primaries.

“This is the final push,” Clinton told a cheering crowd of volunteer canvassers in Fort Wayne, emboldened by her Pennsylvania victory two weeks ago as well as polls that show her in a close race in Indiana and narrowing Obama’s lead in North Carolina.

Obama, for his part, was hoping that wins Tuesday would stop the bleeding from a difficult campaign stretch. Maneuvering for advantage, he sought to portray Clinton as politically motivated on both Iran and her gas-tax plan.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Obama opened a new line of criticism and seized on an answer Clinton gave when asked last month what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons on her watch.

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” Clinton said April 22 in an interview with ABC. “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Obama said, “It’s not the language we need right now, and I think it’s language reflective of George Bush.”

Suggesting that his rival was a political opportunist, Obama added: “Senator Clinton during the course of the campaign has said we shouldn’t speculate about Iran, we’ve got to be cautious when we’re running for president, she scolded me on a couple of occasions on this issue, yet a few days before an election, she’s willing to use that language.”

Clinton, asked on ABC’s “This Week” about Obama’s criticism, said she had no regrets about her comment.

“Why would I have any regrets? I’m asked a question about what I would do if Iran attacked our ally … and, yes, we would have massive retaliation against Iran,” Clinton said. “I don’t think they will do that, but I sure want to make it abundantly clear to them that they would face a tremendous cost if they did such a thing.”

Turning up the heat on an issue closer to home, Obama on NBC called Clinton’s proposal for a gas-tax holiday this summer a “classic Washington gimmick” that wouldn’t solve anything and would save only $28 for each person. He opposes the temporary suspension of the federal tax and argued that Clinton was pandering for votes.

To underscore that, Obama rolled out a new TV ad for Indiana and North Carolina that derided “Clinton gimmicks that help big oil.”

“More low-road attacks from Hillary Clinton. Now she’s pushing a bogus gas-tax gimmick. Experts say it’ll just boost oil industry profits,” the ad says. “Clinton aides admit it won’t do much for you — but would help her politically.”

Clinton dismissed the criticism and disputed Obama’s suggestions that she and Republican candidate John McCain were the same because they both support a gas-tax holiday.

“Senator McCain has said take off the gas tax, don’t pay for it, throw us further into deficit and debt. That is not what I’ve proposed,” Clinton told ABC, adding that she wants the oil companies to pay the gas tax instead of consumers this summer.

Many economists oppose the plan and Clinton demurred when asked to name one who supports it. “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists because I know if we did it right … it would be implemented effectively,” she said.

Focusing on Indiana, Clinton and Obama nearly tripped over each other throughout the day. They stayed overnight in Indianapolis hotels one block apart. They were greeting voters within miles of each other in Fort Wayne. By evening, they planned to return to the capital city for the Indiana Democratic Party’s Jefferson Jackson Dinner.

North Carolina, too, was to get some last-minute attention. Both candidates shuffled their schedules to dart back to the state on Monday, reflecting the tightening contest there

Obama is ahead in the hunt for convention delegates — 1,742.5 to 1,607.5, according to an Associated Press count Sunday — but he has faced a spate of troubles over the past month. That has Clinton sensing an opening. Still, the delegate math works in Obama’s favor, and it will be difficult for Clinton to overtake him.

Nevertheless, Clinton suggested anew she had no intention of dropping out, saying on ABC, “When the process finishes in early June, people can look at all the various factors and decide who would be the strongest candidate” to go up against McCain in the fall.

HAGATNA, Guam - With 12 out of 20 districts reporting in Democratic presidential caucuses on Guam, delegates for Barack Obama were ahead with 899 votes to 769 for those pledged to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

More than 3,000 votes were expected in heavy turnout at caucuses in the U.S. territory, where neither candidate campaigned.

Four pledged delegate votes were at stake on the island 8,000 miles from Washington. Guam also has five superdelegates and some of those are being determined in the caucus voting as well.

Slow ballot-by-ballot counting was under way in the territorial legislative building after votes were hand carried from some 20 caucus sites.

Long lines of voters were reported in schools, community centers and other caucus sites that were open for voting all day Saturday.

U.S. citizens in Guam have no vote in the November presidential election, but the close Clinton-Obama race is giving them an unaccustomed role in the nomination process.

Voters picked eight pledged delegates who will have only one-half vote each at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August.

Presidential caucuses on Guam usually pass without much notice from the candidates.

This time, Obama and Clinton made their case for the territory’s four regular delegates with local advertising and long-distance interviews.

Lines formed early at some caucus sites.

Cynthia Estrada of Dedeo said she was making up her mind while waiting to vote, but she was leaning toward Clinton.

“She’s had the experience,” she said. “She’s got her husband to help her.”

Yona resident Tommy Shimizu said he was voting for Obama delegates.

“It’s the fact that he grew up in Hawaii, and I think he can make change,” he said. “I think it’s time for that.”

Clinton and Obama pitched improved health care and economic opportunity as they courted Guam voters from across the international date line.

Both candidates bought local advertising and conducted media interviews. In their protracted race for the nomination, no contest is being ignored.

Both Clinton and Obama say they’ve got the better health plan for Guamanians.

Obama said in an interview with Pacific Daily News that he would support reexamination of a $5.4 million Medicaid spending limit imposed on the territory. Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, told KUAM radio earlier that his wife would work to remove the cap.

Hillary Clinton also has called for Guamanians to be able to vote in presidential elections.

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

MUNSTER, Ind. - Hillary Rodham Clinton called for a vote Friday in the Democratic-controlled Congress on a summertime suspension of the federal gasoline tax, a plan that Barack Obama dismissed as a political stunt that would cost thousands of construction jobs.

“It’s a Shell game. Literally,” Obama said to laughter from his campaign audience, adding it would mean little for hard-pressed consumers.

The Democratic presidential rivals highlighted their differences in ads and speeches across North Carolina and Indiana, two states with primaries Tuesday.

Polls point toward a particularly close finish in Indiana, which is next door to Obama’s home state of Illinois.

Surveys show him with a dwindling advantage in North Carolina, and Clinton decided to spend all of Friday and Saturday in the state before returning to Indiana for a final push.

The two primaries have 187 national convention delegates at stake.

Obama, the front-runner, leads in the overall delegate competition, 1,736.05-1602.5. Clinton won a decisive victory last week in Pennsylvania and is counting on a strong run through the late primaries to persuade convention superdelegates to help her overtake her rival.

Jolted by Thursday’s defection of Joe Andrew, a former national party chairman, Clinton responded with a letter from seven other former party heads and the family of an eighth.

“Her base of support includes women, Hispanics, seniors, Catholics, middle and low-income Americans, and rural, suburban and urban voters. That’s a formidable coalition tailor-made for victory in a November general election,” they wrote.

They added that if the election were held today, Clinton would defeat Republican Sen. John McCain and win the White House. “Obama would lose to the presumptive GOP nominee,” they wrote.

Polls are equivocal on that point. Moreover, they have been particularly volatile in recent weeks as campaign criticism takes its toll on the two Democrats and Obama grapples with controversy stemming from the rhetoric of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Despite a fierce, occasionally personal campaign, to a surprising degree the former first lady and Obama have generally agreed on most policy issues.

That made the proposed suspension in the gasoline tax an exception.

And while there is little support among the Democratic congressional leadership for the plan, it was a disagreement that both presidential contenders appeared content to perpetuate.

“All I hear about is gas prices. Gas and diesel, everywhere,” Clinton said in Kinston, N.C. “Some people say we don’t need to get a gas tax holiday at all, it’s a gimmick … I want the Congress to stand up and vote. Are they for the oil companies, or are they for you?”

Later, in Hendersonville, she added, “I know where I stand and I know where my opponents stand. … Senator Obama doesn’t want us to take down the gas tax this summer and Senator McCain wants us to, but he doesn’t want to pay for it.”

Clinton has proposed making up the lost revenue by imposing a windfall profits tax on oil companies.

Obama’s rhetoric grew sharper, as well.

“She even borrowed one of Bush’s favorite phrases,” he said dismissively of the New York senator. “She said every member of Congress should have to tell us whether they are with us or against us.”

He said the average consumer would save a “quarter and a nickel” a day, and only $28 in three months.

McCain also favors the gasoline tax holiday, and Obama said sarcastically that showed Clinton “has his vote,” and that the two are reading from the same political playbook.

McCain told a town-hall audience in Denver: “I want to give the American consumer a little bit of relief just for the summer. Maybe they’ll be able to buy an additional textbook for their children when they go back to school this fall.”

Clinton launched a television ad several days ago critical of Obama on the issue.

“The economy’s in trouble. When the housing crisis broke, Hillary Clinton called for action: a freeze on foreclosures. Barack Obama said, no. Now, gas prices are skyrocketing, and she’s ready to act again. … Barack Obama says no, again.”

Obama’s aides said they were responding with a new ad for the campaign’s final days.

Within the congressional leadership, Clinton’s position has found relatively little support, and no votes are currently anticipated in either the House or Senate.

“First of all, there is no reason to believe that any moratorium on the gas tax will be passed on to the consumer,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters on Thursday.

“… This has not been the history of a lower gas tax being passed on to the consumer. Second of all, it would defeat everything that we have been trying to do to lower the cost of oil.”

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said recently that rank-and-file Democrats are divided on the issue. A spokesman said during the day there will be no gasoline tax holiday in legislation Democrats intend to unveil next week.

The dispute centered on a pair of taxes, 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline and 24.4 cents on a gallon of diesel. The money raised goes into a fund that pays for construction of highways and bridges.

In Indiana, Obama said a summertime gasoline tax holiday would cost 6,000 construction jobs. The campaign circulated material showing the estimate came from the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, a trade group. The group said the impact on North Carolina would be 7,000 jobs lost.

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Associated Press Writer Beth Fouhy in North Carolina contributed to this report.

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Hillary Rodham Clinton has an unmistakable bounce in her step these days — a sense of energy and optimism that somehow belies the daunting challenge she faces in wresting the Democratic presidential nomination from Barack Obama.

“I feel good. We’re making progress every day,” she told supporters Thursday in Kentucky, which holds its primary May 20. “Wish I could be here for the Derby. … I hope everyone’s going to place a little money on the filly,” a reference perhaps to horse Eight Belles and herself.

Buoyed by her convincing win in Pennsylvania’s primary April 22, Clinton has been campaigning intensively before Indiana and North Carolina’s contests next week. She’s greeted by large crowds who respond enthusiastically to her plans for improving the faltering economy, and several polls out this week suggest she would be the stronger candidate to face Republican John McCain this fall, both nationally and in important swing states.

Obama, meanwhile, is still contending with the fallout from the controversy surrounding his former pastor and polls showing a tight contest in Indiana, where he once led.

While Obama has won several superdelegate endorsements this week, including that of former DNC chairman and one-time Clinton backer Joe Andrew, the former first lady has secured a few of her own after weeks of superdelegate drought. On Tuesday, she got a boost in North Carolina with the endorsement of Democratic Gov. Mike Easley, another superdelegate.

All of which has given her advisers at least a glimmer of hope that, after a long period of being thought a sure loser, Clinton has regained enough momentum to persuade uncommitted superdelegates to give her candidacy another look. While it may still be a long shot, advisers believe she is in a stronger position to make that argument now than she has been for much of the primary season.

“There is a settled view among Democrats and in the general electorate that Senator Clinton is the better candidate to have knowledge and leadership to turn the economy around,” Clinton strategist Geoff Garin said, noting what he called the former first lady’s “continued success and Senator Obama’s continued difficulty connecting with blue-collar and middle-income voters, both men and women.”

Indeed, Clinton advisers say conversations with uncommitted superdelegates suggest they are concerned about Obama’s persistent weakness among some key demographic groups, particularly Catholic and Hispanic voters. In nominating contests so far this year, Clinton has bested Obama among both groups by a margin of 60 percent to 36 percent.

Then there’s the Illinois senator’s well-publicized tangle with his pastor of 20 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama broke with his spiritual mentor earlier this week after Wright made a number of controversial statements to reporters in Washington, including suggestions that the U.S. government had invited the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the U.S. government was capable of planting AIDS in the black community.

The uproar over Wright has thrown Obama badly off message in a week he hoped to regain footing among working-class whites in Indiana and elsewhere. Clinton advisers believe the controversy has further demonstrated their belief that Obama may be too unknown and untested to stand up as the party’s nominee.

“In my district, Senator Clinton got 67 percent and I think a large part of that was Jeremiah Wright and those issues. It looks like she’s got the momentum,” said Jason Altmire, an undecided superdelegate from Pennsylvania.

Clinton strategists also contend that Obama’s message of hope and political reconciliation has worn thin in recent months as the tanking economy has become voters’ dominant concern. Clinton’s emphasis on policy proposals such as her plan to ease home foreclosures has more salience with voters than Obama’s theme of mending a broken system in Washington, her advisers believe.

Clinton has tried to cast herself as the champion of the middle class even as she casts Obama as out of touch with the concerns of those voters. For example, she’s advocating a summer gas tax holiday — an idea Obama opposes and one that has been widely panned by a range of influential economists.

Still, Clinton strategists acknowledge the odds still don’t favor her.

Obama is ahead in the popular vote, pledged delegates and contests won. She would have to win about 80 percent of the remaining pledged delegates to pull nearly even with Obama — an almost insurmountable hurdle. And her campaign’s efforts to restore the results of Michigan and Florida’s disputed primaries have failed.

Her strategists also acknowledge an all-but-certain outcry among black voters — the Democratic Party’s most reliable constituency — if superdelegates were to back Clinton over Obama if he finishes the primary season ahead in the popular vote and delegate count. But they argue that women could have a similar reaction if Clinton is perceived to be treated unfairly by the process.

Clinton also has real electability problems of her own — years of baggage from her time as first lady that have led to persistent questions about her honesty and integrity. And little is known about Bill Clinton’s post-presidential speaking engagements and business deals that have helped the couple earn more than $109 million since 2001.

In the short term, the New York senator is pressing for a win in Indiana and a narrower-than-expected loss in North Carolina, which has a large population of black and liberal voters. Many observers believe her candidacy could be doomed without a win in Indiana.

The remaining contests through June 3 could include terrain favorable to Clinton, including West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico. Her campaign is holding out hope that she could bring her popular vote total to within striking distance of Obama while continuing to press for some resolution of the Florida and Michigan contests.

“She’s still in the wilderness and in the forest, but the glimmer of sunshine has gotten slightly brighter,” Democratic strategist Jenny Backus said. “Her way to the nomination is a way that is dangerous to the Democratic Party because it could open up divisions and separations that would take us generations to rebuild. The people she has to convince to get there are the activists who care about the future of the party more than anyone in the country.”

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EDITOR’S NOTE — Beth Fouhy covers presidential politics for The Associated Press.