GREENVILLE, North Carolina (AFP) - New polls gave Hillary Clinton fresh hope Monday, as she chased White House rival Barack Obama, on the eve of two primaries which could shape the end-game of their marathon battle.

The Democratic rivals set off on last minute campaign swings through Indiana and North Carolina, which hold primaries on Tuesday which offer Obama the chance to finally knock Clinton out, or for her to ignite a comeback.

"This is going to be exciting tomorrow, because I started very far behind," Clinton said on CNN. "I think we've closed the gap."

Obama, 46, who leads in Clinton, 60, in pledged delegates, and nominating contests won, seems to have a mathematical lock on the nomination, but appeared resigned to battling on until the bitter end of the primary calendar.

"The last contest is on June 3, and so, I'm pretty confident that we will be competing in all those contests, and Senator Clinton will be as well," Obama said on NBC.

"I think, at that point, everybody will have voted, and we will be in a position to make a decision about who the Democratic nominee is going to be."

A new USA Today poll out Monday suggested that Obama, vowing to become America's first black president, had been damaged by the fallout of racially tinged remarks by his former pastor Jeremiah Wright.

For the first time in three months, the former first lady led her rival in the survey of national Democrats, by seven percentage points. Two weeks ago before the latest storm over Wright hit, Obama was up 10 points.

A new CBS/New York Times poll on Sunday however suggested Obama had started to recover from the Wright furor, giving him an 11-point lead over Republican candidate McCain, 51-40.

Last Tuesday, that hypothetical matchup had been tied. Clinton led McCain in the same poll by 12 points.

Another poll, by Suffolk University in Indiana, showed the New York senator leading Obama in the state by six points 49 percent to 43 percent.

"It's no slam dunk but Hillary Clinton is poised to win (Indiana)," said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk Univerity Political Research Center.

Analysts say Clinton needs take the midwestern state at least to halt a flow of Democratic party support to Obama, and stay in the race.

Obama still led in another battleground, North Carolina, where Clinton and her husband former president Bill Clinton have been campaigning feverishly.

A Zogby tracking survey had the Illinois senator up by eight in the state, much lower than the 20 point lead he had enjoyed in some polls just weeks ago. Zogby had the race in Indiana a mathematical tie.

Clinton's camp admits she can't overhaul Obama in the count of pledged delegates who will formally anoint the nominee at the convention in August.

She is pinning her hopes on a collapse in Obama's support, hoping it will convince party bosses, or superdelegates to conclude the Illinois senator cannot beat Republican John McCain in November.

After weeks of sniping Clinton and Obama tried to show a softer side on Sunday.

The former first lady showed up at a Dairy Queen ice cream store in Indiana, while Obama held a giant picnic with his family, as his six-year-old, Sasha urged people to "Vote for Daddy."

The former First Lady was asked on ABC television whether she had any regrets about threatening to "totally obliterate" Iran if it used nuclear weapons against Israel.

"Why would I have any regrets? I am asked a question about what I would do if Iran attacked our ally, a country that many of us have a great deal of, you know, connection with and feeling for," she said.

But Obama accused Clinton of emulating what he called President George W. Bush's "foreign policy of bluster and saber-rattling and tough talk."

The Obama campaign excoriated Clinton's call for a temporary moratorium on federal gasoline taxes, which the Illinois senator has ridiculed as a "gimmick."

"More low road attacks from Hillary Clinton," the ad's narrator says. "Clinton aides admit it won't do much for you -- but would help her politically."

But the Clinton campaign argued that Obama had did not understand the struggles of ordinary people.

AFP, May 5, 2008