Clinton and Obama fight moves to the next round

Democrat rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama today shifted their battle for the presidential nomination to Indiana, the Midwestern state where the former first lady faces yet another must-win vote in the opening days of May.

Coming out of a solid victory this week in Pennsylvania, Mrs Clinton faces an uphill contest in Indiana where polls show Mr Obama holds a slight edge. He also has the lead in North Carolina, a Southern state with a large African American population that votes in tandem with Indiana on May 6.

While Mrs Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania breathed new life and fresh cash into her campaign, she only dented Mr Obama’s nearly unassailable lead in elected delegates.

And as she moved west into Indiana, Mrs Clinton ignored the long odds and declared herself the best candidate to defeat John McCain, who wrapped up the Republican nomination about two months ago and has been benefiting greatly from the increasingly bitter battle between the Democrats.

In Indianapolis, she pledged to focus on economic issues.

“This campaign for me here in Indiana is about jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs,” she said, promising to invest in manufacturing and end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.

In New Albany, Indiana, Mr Obama was asked why he thought he could win Indiana after losing Pennsylvania and Ohio, two states with large numbers of working-class voters.

“People are a little more familiar with me here,” he said. Indiana flanks his home state of Illinois on its eastern border and shares a northern television market next to the Chicago metropolitan region.

Mr McCain, meanwhile, sought to strengthen his credentials as an unconventional Republican, campaigning in a poor region of Kentucky following stops earlier in the week in Selma, Alabama, site of a historic civil rights march, and Youngstown, Ohio, a struggling industrial city.

Meanwhile a new dispute broke out in a campaign filled with them, this one involving vote counts.

Mrs Clinton said she had “received more votes by the people who have voted, than anybody else.” Her reckoning included Florida and Michigan, states that held primaries so early in the year that the Democratic National Committee said they did not count, and denied seating to delegates.

Mr Obama leads in the combined vote totals in primaries and caucuses that have counted, and he dismissed Mrs Clinton ’s claim.