With two days to go before a crucial US presidential vote, Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigned through Pennsylvania yesterday as the former first lady got the support of one of her fiercest critics.
Tomorrow's primary to help pick the Democratic candidate against Republican John McCain in November's presidential election is the first contest in six weeks and has become a major test in the race to the party's nomination.
Mrs Clinton a New York senator, leads in state polls but Mr Obama, an Illinois senator, has cut into her one-time double-digit lead in recent weeks.
Mrs Clinton, who, together with her husband former President Bill Clinton was the object of many conservative investigations when the couple first entered the White House in 1993, was endorsed yesterday by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review whose publisher, Richard Mellon Scaife, funded many of those probes.
The Tribune-Review mentioned Ms Clinton's record and experience in making the choice in the Democratic vote, but also cited her willingness to sit down with the newspaper's editorial board.
"Clinton's decision to sit down with the Trib was courageous, given our long-standing criticism of her," the paper said. "That is no small matter. Political courage is essential in a President. Clinton has demonstrated it. Obama has not."
Mrs Clinton shook hands with people at a diner in Abington, asking for their support before heading off to three more events around the state, while Mr Obama went to church in Lebanon and travelled to rallies in Reading and Scranton.
Mr McCain, an Arizona senator who has sewed up the Republican nomination, was heading off on a multistate tour of areas hard hit by poverty.
Ahead of Tomorrow's Pennsylvania vote, most analysts believed Mrs Clinton would win but the the size of a victory has become the focus of both campaigns.
Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell, a Clinton backer, pointed out that Mr Obama outspent her by a 3.5-to-one margin, including more than $2.9 million on television ads in the state last week.
"That's almost obscene," Governor Rendell said on CBS' Face the Nation. "So to win by four, five, six, seven points under that type of spending differential, that would be a huge and very significant victory."
But Mr Obama's camp responded that she would have to win by much bigger margins in the 10 remaining contests if she is going to catch Mr Obama in the hunt for the 2,024 delegates needed to win the nomination at the party's national convention in August.
"The math is very unforgiving at this point when it comes to delegate counts, and that's what it's all about," said Senator Richard Durbin, who supports Mr Obama.
"At this point, Senator Clinton needs more than 60 per cent of the vote in Pennsylvania," Durbin, Illinois's other senator, said on Fox News Sunday. Under Democratic rules even losers in presidential contests win some delegates.
Before heading off on his poverty tour, Mr McCain appeared on ABC's This Week to defend his economic proposals to cut government spending and address the issues of his temper that was the subject of a front-page Washington Post story yesterday.
He said examples used in the story were decades old, "totally untrue or grossly exaggerated".
"I am very happy to be a passionate man," he said. "I love this country. I love what we stand for and believe in, and many times I deal passionately when I find things that are not in the best interests of the American people."