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Scaling down the pitches

BY NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON | nia.henderson@newsday.com

May 4, 2008

INDIANAPOLIS - Bringing the race for the Democratic nomination closer to home yesterday, both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama opted to make closing arguments in small-scale, family-friendly settings where their climbs are steepest in Tuesday's primaries - North Carolina for Clinton and Indiana for Obama.

For both candidates, campaigning was a family affair - Obama taking the stage in Indiana with his wife and two daughters in tow, and all three Clintons fanning out across North Carolina and Indiana.

Describing himself as a "black man named Barack Obama," the Illinois senator told a mixed crowd of 750 at an Indianapolis high school the only way he could win was "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, and the comments of a former pastor - bigger than the differences between what we look like or where we come from."

Obama last week suggested his campaign may suffer as a result of comments by his now estranged former pastor, Jeremiah Wright Jr. In door-to-door canvassing across Indiana, Obama supporters have been handing out copies of his race speech last month after Wright's controversial comments surfaced.

Clinton spoke to working moms at a forum in Cary, N.C., recalling the stresses of juggling work and family. In Indiana, where most polls show Clinton ahead, Obama picnicked and later stopped on land settled by his great- great- great-grandfather in Kempton.

In this final leg of campaigning, he has traded huge rallies and town hall meetings for more intimate and scenic settings - a kind of "get to know the candidate" approach aimed at white blue-collar workers, a voting bloc that has continued to elude him.

But perhaps nobody has stumped as hard as Bill Clinton, who is making a week's total of 42 stops in small towns across both states.

Yesterday, Obama got a boost, winning the Guam party caucus where four delegates were at stake.