Last day before Indiana, North Carolina primaries

Associated Press 

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Democratic chase for the White House is now just a day away from another milepost.

North Carolina and Indiana hold primaries tomorrow and the two remaining candidates both see the outcome as crucial.

Embattled frontrunner Barack Obama bluntly told an Indiana crowd yesterday, "I need your help." Hillary Clinton told a cheering audience in Fort Wayne, "This is the final push."

Obama hopes that wins tomorrow might stop the bleeding from a difficult campaign stretch.

He's zeroing in on a Clinton threat to "totally obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel and on her call for a summer "holiday" from the federal gas tax. Obama says the Iran threat amounts to Bush-style "bluster and saber rattling." And he dismisses the gas-tax idea as a gimmick that would just help Big Oil.

Defending her earlier Iran comment, Clinton says she doesn't think Iran would attack Israel, but wants to make the consequences "abundantly clear."

No matter what happens tomorrow, both candidates say they'll press on.