KEY POINTS:
Senator Barack Obama is closing fast on Senator Hillary Clinton for the vital Pennsylvania primary on Wednesday, as he has emerged from the ugliest week in their 15-month race literally brushing off her last-ditch attacks.
Only a victory in double figures will keep the former first lady credible in the battle for the Democratic Party nomination to fight for the White House and she is slipping rapidly in most polls.
Six weeks of campaigning since the last primaries pitted the two in an increasingly vicious and personal brawl have failed to dent Obama's rise.
Two polls last week found that more than 50 per cent of voters considered Clinton dishonest and untrustworthy. Obama's unfavourable ratings have also risen from 28 per cent to 36 per cent in the past month
But after a week that was more bruising for Obama, he emerged ahead of Clinton in a poll of Democratic voters about the nomination nationally, and ahead of both Clinton and Republican rival John McCain in national presidential polls and surveys of the candidates' honesty and favourability, while gaining on her in Pennsylvania itself.
Clinton is still expected to win the state, but most polls there now have her 5 per cent ahead at most, with some predicting a photo-finish and one a long-shot Obama victory.
While Obama is drawing crowds to big events, his campaign team are scrabbling for undecided voters in white rural areas and small towns, until recent weeks solid Hillary country. Their goal is to shrink Clinton's margin of victory to the point where it looks humiliating, even terminal.
"If we're going to keep this in single digits, we've got to mine every vote we can," said Sean Smith, a spokesman for the Obama campaign.
Obama's crowd of 35,000 on Independence Mall in Philadelphia on Saturday was not quite up with the Pope's expected congregation of 60,000 in New York's Yankee Stadium today, but it gave him the look of being populist and presidential.
Both candidates crisscrossed the state yesterday. Clinton travelled by bus and plane to some five rallies statewide, while Obama rode a train for a "whistle-stop" tour of four cities.
With Obama ahead in the count of supportive party delegates and the popular vote, Clinton's campaign is taking on a desperate edge.
Even in a week of taking bruising assaults on the trail and in their 21st televised debate, Obama still garnered the endorsement of six more superdelegates and rock idol Bruce Springsteen.
Clinton has the support of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, but has been attacked for appearing to side with right-wing enemies against her rival senator.
"Clinton has broken an unwritten rule of politics, which is that you do not disadvantage a member of your own party and side with your opponents," said Gary Hart, a former Democratic presidential candidate, who has endorsed Obama.
Despite answering "yes, yes, yes" when asked if Obama was fit for the presidency during their ABC network debate last week, Clinton has boosted McCain's credibility by praising his experience and qualifications to become commander-in-chief.
"Hillary Clinton has philosophical differences with McCain, far-right-wingers Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh and the conservative talking heads on Fox TV," Washington Post columnist Colbert King wrote in an editorial yesterday.
"But they and Clinton have a common enemy: Obama.
"Their allegiance to the goal of bringing him down makes them compatriots.
"Buchanan, who proclaims that 'reverse discrimination is pandemic', goes into overtime, branding Obama as a left-wing zealot while praising Clinton as a paragon of Middle American virtues," he added.
Clinton accused Obama of doing too much complaining after he spent most of the ABC debate on the ropes over his political and religious links and his comments that small-town Pennsylvanians are bitter and cling to guns and religion. But he smoothly moved back from it on Saturday in North Carolina with hip-hop moves taken from music mogul Jay-Z that had a crowd - liberally peppered with Clinton's grassroots white women - on their feet and cheering wildly.
Drawing shrieks of laughter from a crowd in Raleigh, as he dived south briefly from Pennsylvania for an event ahead of the North Carolina primary on May 6, Obama joked about the debate.
He mimed a hand stabbing with a dagger and said: "Hillary looked in her element. Y'know, that's her right, to twist the knife a little bit."
Then he deadpanned and mimed brushing dirt off each shoulder, a move Jay-Z, uses to dismiss the negative sentiments of anyone ill-disposed towards him and what he stands for..
Clinton had earlier declared: "I'm with Harry Truman on this - if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen ... just speaking for myself, I am very comfortable in the kitchen."
Obama was effectively saying I am, too - name your kitchen.
BARACK OBAMA
POSITION
Pledged delegates: 1415 (ahead 164)
Superdelegates: 233
Overall delegates: 1648 (ahead 141)
States: 25 won
POLLS
Pennsylvania (Wednesday), 158 delegates: Has clawed back a 20-point Clinton lead. Polls mainly put him a few points behind
Indiana (May 6), 72: Polls show him about 5 points ahead
North Carolina (May 6), 115: Polls show him about 15 points ahead
TACTICS
Obama is trying to turn a negative into a positive by portraying the Clinton camp's attacks on him as the same old, same old. He is hoping that voter disgust at politics as usual and a general desire for change will overcome doubts raised about him and his judgment. He is outspending Clinton five to one on ads, tapping US$2 million in the final days. His campaign has been saying Pennsylvania is probably Clinton's - while pushing hard for a win.
ON THE CARDS
The odds suggest Clinton squeezing a narrow victory in Pennsylvania. And there's a chance she could do better still: Obama closed a large gap in Ohio yet Clinton won comfortably. Although questions swirling around Obama could hurt him in the general election, polls show he has so far weathered the buffeting of recent weeks. His support remains steady and superdelegates continue to leak his way. An upset win would accelerate that trend. The Democratic hierarchy is aching to end this fight as Republican John McCain is considered the major beneficiary of any battle to August's party convention. The pressure will be huge on Clinton to quit after the May 6 contests.
HILLARY CLINTON
POSITION
Pledged delegates: 1251
Superdelegates: 256 (ahead 23)
Overall delegates: 1507
States: 13 won
POLLS
Pennsylvania: Demographically similar to Ohio which she won, but she has seen her lead fall.
Indiana: Was neck and neck but polls show state trending towards Obama.
North Carolina: Little chance as state has big African-American population.
TACTICS
Clinton accuses Obama of trying to have it both ways, presenting himself as trying to run a positive campaign while getting plenty of digs in at her. She has been hammering away at Obama's electability for the general election, but new polls have shown her own unfavourability ratings have risen. The campaign has been downplaying expectations, pointing to his spending advantage.
ON THE CARDS
Clinton MUST win Pennsylvania because the omens are not good for her in Indiana and North Carolina - she needs a turbo boost to have an excuse to carry on. Three losses at this stage of the campaign could quite likely be fatal, considering the concern within the party at the possible damage the contest is doing to the Democrats' chances. Even a narrow win may not be enough. She has no mathematical chance of winning by gaining more pledged delegates than Obama. Her argument to the superdelegates boils down to a single prediction - he cannot beat McCain - and she is doing her best to fulfil the prophesy by wounding him as a candidate. Pennsylvania is full of her people - a high percentage of unionised workers and the second highest population of seniors in the US after Florida.
- OBSERVER
