As Tuesday Votes Loom, Obama Seeks Lift and Clinton Pushes Gas-Tax Plan

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: As Tuesday Votes Loom, Obama Seeks Lift and Clinton Pushes Gas-Tax Plan
By JEFF ZELENY and JODI KANTOR
Published: May 4, 2008

INDIANAPOLIS — After the most trying week of his presidential bid, Senator Barack Obama sought to reframe and reinvigorate his candidacy on Saturday by asking Democrats to disregard “phony ideas, calculated to win elections instead of actually solving problems” and to seize an opportunity to change Washington.

In a speech here, on the final weekend of campaigning before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries on Tuesday, Mr. Obama urged voters to move beyond the political controversies that have dominated the Democratic nominating fight and stirred skepticism about his strength as a general election candidate. “That’s the only way I can win this race,” Mr. Obama said, “if you decide that you’ve had enough of the way things are, if you decide that this election is bigger than flag pins or sniper fire or the comments of a former pastor — bigger than the differences between what we look like or where we come from or what party we belong to.”

As Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed to voters in North Carolina, holding a breezy chat session with a few hundred mothers and later appearing before Nascar enthusiasts, she highlighted her support for suspending the federal gas tax this summer. Mr. Obama derided the idea as “a Shell game — literally,” drawing distinctions with Mrs. Clinton and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Mr. Obama’s speech here underscored his efforts to retool his campaign — and fend off what his aides acknowledged was unexpected strength from Mrs. Clinton in Indiana and North Carolina — by forcefully returning to themes that had served him well in Iowa and other states, presenting himself as an outsider and an agent of change. He did not, at least on this day, seem prepared to end the campaign with harsh attacks on Mrs. Clinton....

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For the first time since the Iowa caucus campaign, Mr. Obama was joined here by his daughters, Malia and Sasha, and his wife, Michelle. The imagery of the young family was intended to amplify his speech and remind voters of his biography. The Obamas stopped at a park in Noblesville, dropped by the former home of a distant relative in Kempton and ended the evening at an ice cream social at a Lafayette roller rink. Each of the appearances, carefully choreographed, was intended to send a message of familiarity to voters....

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Until recently, Mr. Obama was considered the candidate with the greater personal appeal and the more consistent message. But on Saturday, Mrs. Clinton offered sympathetic words to several hundred mothers about the problems of child care and teenage dating, while continuing to focus on the economy....

Later, at the North Carolina Auto Racing Hall of Fame, Mrs. Clinton stood amid life-size cutouts of Nascar stars and one real, live one: Junior Johnson, who introduced the senator. “You know, our country is in trouble,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Junior, it’s in the ditch!”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/us/politics/04campaign-1.html