As Candidates Focus on Economy, Clinton Defends Gas Tax Plan

Andrew cited the long Democratic campaign as detrimental to the party's hopes of recapturing the White House in November and said Obama is the likely winner of the nomination. "We need to stop this process now," he said.

Clinton gained superdelegates as well Thursday in what has become a parallel competition to the primaries. Obama has continued to pick up superdelegates despite his recent losses and controversies, and he has narrowed what was once a healthy lead for Clinton. In response, Clinton's advisers have pleaded with superdelegates not to commit until the primaries are over, with the hope that she can show by then that she deserves to be the nominee.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs expressed hope that the worst of the fallout may be over. "We dealt clearly and definitively with Reverend Wright and demonstrated to people where we stand," he said at an Indiana campaign stop. "Right now, we're going to hammer what we've got. He's focusing on the economy."

Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), who has not endorsed either candidate but has sounded sympathetic toward Obama, accused Wright on Thursday of "some kind of knee-capping operation" against Obama, but he said the candidate would not have picked up key endorsements this week if the controversy had inflicted serious damage.

Everywhere he has gone recently, Obama has made the debate over the gas tax holiday a centerpiece. He considers it an issue that links his approach toward the economy with the core message of his campaign: He is a different kind of politician who will focus, as he likes to say, on what Americans need to hear, not what they want to hear.

Calling the idea of a three-month suspension of the 18.4-cent-a-gallon gas tax a Clinton-McCain proposal, Obama tells audiences that it would mean an extra 30 cents a day in the pockets of an ordinary family, if the oil industry does not raise prices. He said it shows that his opponents care more about winning favor and the election than about solving the country's growing energy woes.

At a rally Wednesday night in Bloomington, Obama's gas tax riff brought a crowd of 12,000 supporters to its feet.

Gibbs said the issue "encapsulates exactly what is wrong with Washington and what is wrong with the other two candidates," adding that it also gives Obama a chance to emphasize "seriousness" and "trust," qualities that voters have said are important in choosing between the Democrats.

But Clinton and her advisers held their ground.

"There's a real gap here in how some people see this from 30,000 feet and how real people in places like North Carolina and Indiana experience it every day, and they really want somebody who will say, 'You know what, we get that you're facing a very difficult economic situation here -- we're going to stand by you,' " Garin said.

Clinton argued that she is striking the right balance with a plan to suspend the federal gasoline tax and offset the cost with a temporary windfall-profits tax on oil companies. "Senator Obama says we shouldn't do it and it's a gimmick, and Senator McCain says we should but we shouldn't pay for it," she said. "I sometimes feel like the Goldilocks of this campaign: Not too much. Not too little. Just right."

In Jeffersonville, Ind., on Thursday afternoon, Clinton reminded her audience that it has been 40 years since the state's primary has counted for anything, and she returned to an old tactic to sway undecided voters. "Who would you hire," she asked, "to turn the economy around? Who would you hire to take on the oil companies? . . . Who would you hire for us to have a universal health-care system? . . . Who would you hire to take care of our veterans, to end the war in Iraq and win the war in Afghanistan?"

Staff writer Jonathan Weisman contributed to this report.