Obama Heats Up Indiana, North Carolina Primaries

May 5, 2008— -- On the eve of two crucial primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., campaigned across both states in a last-ditch effort to woo undecided voters and quell any doubts that have arisen about him over the last two weeks.

Obama wasted no time today, starting this last full day of campaigning before the two primaries at 4:45 in the morning. He left his hotel in Evansville, Ind., while it was still dark, to do a round of morning show interviews, and by 8:30 a.m. he had already stopped by a construction site to greet workers and spoke at a breakfast for local labor leaders.

Obama needs to forage for every last vote in Indiana, where polls show him trailing Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and his efforts haven't been helped by the controversy surrounding his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Wright, who re-emerged as a factor in the campaign a week ago with two inflamatory speeches, seems to have had an effect on voters' feelings about the presidential hopeful.

According to a New York Times/CBS News poll out today, 57 percent of voters said the Wright issue will not matter to them at all when they decide who to vote for in November, but 44 percent of those polled said they thought the issue would matter to people they know. Nearly half of those polled said Obama renounced his ties to Wright because it would help him politically.

Wright made headlines weeks ago for his controversial comments, and Obama denounced Wright after he suggested that Obama secretly agreed with him.

"I don't think people believe that somehow I subscribe to some of the views that Rev. Wright expressed," Obama said. "There are probably some Democrats that are worried about what Republicans might do, and so, they are thinking more strategically what this means for a general election campaign."

Obama says he chose to attend Trinity United Church of Christ where Wright preaches because it's a "wonderful church community that lives out the social gospel."

"The caricature of what people have seen out of Wright suggests that somehow that was what people were hearing or seeing every day, and that just wasn't. It's a church that was talking about Jesus, and talking about faith, and talking about redemption," Obama said.

Obama doesn't believe, however, that the Wright controversy has changed voters' perceptions of him from a candidate who transcended race to a candidate defined by it.

"As somebody who's worked all my life and written about it and spoken about the need to unify the country, I think people understand that's who I am," he said.

The shots in the Democratic primary campaign are getting nasty, and this weekend it got downright crude as Clinton confidante James Carville told Newsweek, "If she gave him one of her cojones, they'd both have two."

Obama responded to Carville's comments for the first time today.

"Well, you know, James Carville is well-known for spouting off his mouth without always knowing what he's talking about," Obama told "Nightline." "And I intend to stay focused on fighting for the American people because what they don't need is 20 more years of performance art on television. And that's what James Carville and a lot of those folks are expert at ... a lot of talk and not getting things done for the American people."