VOTERS in the U.S. states of Indiana and North Carolina crowded polling places yesterday as they sought to settle the largest remaining contests in the Democratic presidential nomination struggle between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton that has dragged improbably into spring.

    Opinion polls pointed to another messy draw on the biggest single day of voting left in the epic battle, with Obama tipped to win in North Carolina and Clinton ahead in Indiana.

    The rivals raced through a frenetic campaign swing in the two states Monday but both signaled the contest would drag on through the bitter end of the primary calendar, on June 3 in Montana and South Dakota.

    “We hope to do as well as we can, we started out pretty far behind,” Clinton told reporters. The former first lady also took another swing at OPEC, after oil prices burst the symbolic US$120-a-barrel barrier.

    “They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly that get together once every couple of months in some conference room in some plush place in the world,” Clinton said.

    Clinton’s camp admits she cannot overtake the Illinois senator in the count of pledged delegates who will formally anoint the nominee at the Democratic convention in August.

    So she is pinning her hopes on persuading nearly 800 superdelegates, who look set to have the deciding vote, that he cannot beat Republican presidential candidate John McCain in November.

    Analysts say Clinton, 60, needs to take the rustbelt state of Indiana to at least halt a flow of Democratic “superdelegates” to Obama and stay in the race.

    (SD-Agencies)