by Mark Silva

It was after midnight, Central time, and the mayor of Gary, Ind., was explaining on national cable television news why it had taken his county so long to count the vote.

"They're counting them as we speak,'' Mayor Rudy Clay said on CNN. "Right here in Lake County, all we can do is count our votes.''

And, sure enough, within minutes the Lake County election tally reached 98 percent of the vote - and Barack Obama's gains on Hillary Clinton were slowing.

"It looks right now that she is positioned to squeak by in Indiana,'' said Wolf Blitzer, who quickly pivoted to the more formal CNN declaration at about 1:12 am EDT. "We can now project that Hillary Clinton will win, will win, the state of Indiana.''

* * *

Oh boy, late-night clouds of conspiracy had gathered.

As the results of Indiana's close primary election were delayed by Lake County's prolonged vote-counting, the network news commentators were starting to question the integrity of the ballot-count in Hammond, Gary and environs.

Jeff Toobin, the legal analyst turned political commentator, was openly suggesting on CNN that this unusual release of the tally smacked of Chicago-style vote-counting: Withholding the results of a county likely to favor Sen. Barack Obama until the rest of the close count in the state was completed.

"HBO has a movie coming out in a couple weeks about the recount in Florida,'' said Toobin, a veteran of the 2000 Florida recount. "It was very similar that night in Florida where the margin kept shrinking and shrinking.''

"Why haven't they at least given us some of the votes?'' Wolf Blitzer asked as the evening wore on.

"As Ricky Ricardo would say, they have some 'splaining to do,'' said John King. "It begs the question, what's taking so long.''

It was close to midnight before Lake's first returns arrived at the CNN news desk, comng mainly from Gary -- and running 75-25 Obama.

"We didn't think the whole country would be focusing on Hammond, Ind.,'' said Tom McDermott, mayor of Hammond, Ind., a Clinton-supporter who turned his city's vote counts in to Lake County early this evening and says Clinton narrowly carried Hammond. And yes, the mayor was saying, this is pretty close to Chicago.

* * *

"Not too long ago, my opponent made a prediction,'' Clinton said in Indianapolis tonight. "He said I would win Pennsylvania, he would win North Carolina and Indiana would be the tie-breaker.... Well, we've come from behind, we've broken the tie and thanks to you it's full-speed on to the White House.''

Speaking before the final votes had been counted in Indiana - with her advantage over Sen. Barack Obama in the state narrowing, and many Obama-leaning precincts still unreported - the senator was careful to take the stage before the run of evening broadcast television news. She stood with husband Bill, the former president, and daughter Chelsea behind her.

Clinton was still talking about cutting gas taxes on stage tonight, too, and health insurance, and mortgage foreclosures. But, with a 52-48 percentage point split in Indiana hovering over her, and the final votes uncounted, Clinton was stopping just a shade short of celebrating any personal triumph.

"Fundamentally, I believe that Americans need a champion in their corner,'' Clinton said with a hint of the inevitable party unity that will follow this primary campaign in her talk. "I think standing up for working people is about the American dream and the Democratic Party... It is important, as we go forward in this campaign, that we recognize we are all on the same team.''

Did she say dream team? No, same team.

* * *

That "tie-breaker'' that Obama was hoping for in Indiana was turning into a near-tie the longer the vote-count went in the state tonight.

With Clinton's advantage over Obama narrowing, the uncounted votes of northwestern Lake County -- with Gary and Hammond offering happy-hunting for the senator from neighboring Illinois -- were holding up the declaration of a winner.

Obama all but ceded Indiana to Clinton tonight in his North Carolina victory speech, but would this become a Trumanesque moment? Lake promises late results.

But the glass already was more than half-full for Obama:

* * *

"Thank you, North Carolina,'' Obama said in Raleigh tonight.

"There were those who were saying that North Carolina would be a game-changer in this election. But today what North Carolina decided is that the only game that needs changing is the one in Washington, D.C.''

Obama congratulated Sen. Hillary Clinton "for what appears to be her victory'' in Indiana - though at this point the Indiana race had not been called yet.

Obama, who has confronted questions about his ability to "close the deal'' with Democratic voters in big states, hailed North Carolina as "a big state... a swing state... a state that we will compete to win if I am the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.''

And, while the party's primary contest appears still far from finished, Obama delivered tonight what very much sounded like the clarion call of a nominee.

"This primary season may be over, but when it is, we will have to remember who we are as Democrats,'' Obama said. "And we are at our best when we lead with principle... when we summon an entire nation to a common purpose, a higher purpose.''

* * *

How now the Rev. Jeremiah Wright?

The now-retired and controversial former longtime pastor of Sen. Barack Obama has played a larger than life role in the Democratic Party's presidential primary campaign for the past two monhs.

What role did he play today?

Half of the voters leaving polling places today in North Carolina and Indiana told pollsters that Wright - known nationwide for remarks about racial power that Obama has denounced as unacceptable - was important in their choice of a candidate.

Among these voters, exit polling today found, seven in 10 in Indiana and six in 10 in North Carolina voted for Clinton, including eight in 10 white voters. Voters discounting Wright as a factor heavily favored Obama.

. Overall, six in 10 white voters in both Indiana and North Carolina supported Clinton -- similar to her margin over Obama among whites nationally so far.

The findings come from exit polling by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for The Associated Press and television networks. Pollsters interviewed 1,738 voters in Indiana's Democratic contest and 1,717 in North Carolina, with a possible margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points in each state.

* * *

With Clinton claiming a lead in the early counting of ballots in Indiana, CBS News has called the Indiana primary for the senator from New York. The other networks, however, were holding out for a fuller look at the numbers.

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign, maintaining that the Illinois senator's victory in North Carolina tonight represents a revival of his momentum, suggested that Clinton cannot overcome Obama in the remaining contests and battle for superdelegates.

"The math is the math, and I know math has been reinvented several times here,'' said David Axelrod, Obama's chief campaign strategist. "I think the reality of this is that, from this point on... Sen. Clinton would have to win close to 70 percent of the remaining delegates, both pledged delegates and super-delegates. That's a really tall order... We believe this momentum is going to continue to build.''

* * *

Join us here this evening for the story that refuses to end.

When polls closed in the two biggest states with remaining Democratic Party primary elections in this protracted contest for the party's 2008 presidential nomination, the story was not likely to close.

But the Swamp would be here, live-blogging through the evening.

* * *

Obama held a strong advantage in North Carolina from the start of his contest with Hillary Clinton there. And exit polling found that Obama built a sufficient base of support among white voters - with 36 percent supporting him there - in addition to solid backing in the African-American community, 91 percent.

In Indiana, while 34 percent of white voters without a college degree backed Obama, 65 percent supported Clinton, exit polling there found. Yet among white voters without a college degree in North Carolina, Clinton held a wider advantage, claiming 68 percent to Obama's 24 percent.

Clinton, despite her loss in North Carolina and a potential win in Indiana tonight, will be replaying these demographic numbers for superdelegates whom she is trying to convince that she, not Obama, is the Democrat who can beat Republican John McCain in November. Obama, for his part, will be touting his win in North Carolina.

* * *
At the closing of the polls in North Carolina, CNN, CBS News, FOX News and the Associated Press have called the Democratic primary election there for Barack Obama - a measure of how strong a margin the senator from Illinois has achieved there in a contest with Hillary Clinton.

* * *

A lot of money and effort went into convincing the voters of Indiana that Hillary Clinton cares about the working class and Barack Obama does not - the centerpiece of their struggle, a battle over federal gas taxes.

Yet look at what exit surveys of voters leaving the polling places in Indiana found when people were asked if the candidates share their values:

 62 percent said Clinton does, and 37 percent said she does not.

 65 percent said Obama does, and 33 percent said he does not.

Sounds like a wash on the out-of-touch meter.

* * *
A 7 pm EDT, with the closing of the polls in Indiana, CNN is announcing that, based on the results of exit polling, it is impossible to call the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Early actual returns are favoring Clinton, but they are very early.

Should the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton end with a split decision in Indiana and North Carolina - with close finishes possible in both places - the Democrats at best are likely to split the pledged delegates at stake and press on toward the remaining several primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia (May 13), Kentucky and Oregon (May 20), Idaho (May 27) and Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota (June 3.)

There are 187 pledged delegates at stake today - with 72 in Indiana and 115 in North Carolina. There are another 217 at stake through June 3.

Yet 366 still are in dispute in Florida and Michigan, penalized for holding their parties in January contrary to party rules. And the senator from New York is signaling that she will include those delegates in the ultimate count of what's needed to secure her party's presidential nomination.

Obama, leading in the popular vote of the undisputed primaries and holding a nearly 150 lead over Clinton in pledged delegates, is attempting to make the same case that Clinton is making to the party "super-delegates'' who ultimately settle the contest: He, or she, is the electable one.

The two-front primary contest between Clinton and Obama finished today in two states that the GOP hopes to include in its winning columns in November. And in both places, Clinton and Obama had fought for the rural and working-class Democratic voters whom their party hopes to court in a heated fall contest with Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

In Indiana in particular, the two Democrats fought over a federal gas tax that Congress appears unlikely to suspend this summer - with Clinton playing her support for a "gas-tax holiday'' from the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal levy as a matter of sympathy for working-class voters facing soaring gas prices, and Obama dismissing the plan as another false Washington "gimmick'' that won't really alleviate gas prices.

"What's happened to Barack Obama,'' the narrator of a Clinton campaign ad asked. "He's attacking Hillary's plan to give you a break on gas prices... because he doesn't have one... Barack Obama wants you to keep paying, $8 billion in all... Hillary is the one who gets it.''

"Hillary Clinton, pandering for votes, and not telling the truth,'' replied the narrator of an Obama-supporting ad run by Friends of Earth Action. "Clinton's siding with John McCain on a gas tax plan that will do nothing to lower the cost of gas... On Tuesday it's time for a change.''

Obama admitted to a tough fight for that blue-collar vote.

"It's really a mixed bag,'' the senator from Illionis said. "There've been some states where we have won the blue collar vote. Wisconsin. We won it in Iowa. We won it in Minnesota. Then there are other states where we've not done so well, mainly because people are much more familiar with Sen. Clinton and President Clinton and their track record.

"You have to give them credit," Obama said of his opponent, and her husband, the former president who has campaigned tirelessly for her.

"They're the best established brand name in Democratic politics, maybe in politics overall,'' Obama, a first-term senator, said. "They've been on the scene for 20 years. They're not going to go down easy."

Indeed, Clinton has suggested that the finish line for this contest remains a little further down the road - with a delegate-count for claiming the party's nomination that includes Florida and Michigan alike.

With 2,025 delegates needed to claim the nomination among delegations whom the party plans to seat in Denver this summer, Obama has cornered 1,745 and Clinton 1,602.

The remaining numbers rest with the voters of Indiana and North Carolina today, several more states in the final month ahead - and ultimately in the hands of party super-delegates who call the race.

"I think it's 2,209," Clinton said of the winning number.

And signaling that her campaign does not stop here, she said: "I think that it's going to be the rest of these contests, which are very significant.

"And then in June, if we haven't done it already, we're going to have to resolve Florida and Michigan," Clinton said. ""nd they were legitimate elections. People came out and voted

"If you count them, I'm ahead in the number of people who voted. It's a close delegate race. It's a close vote total and we're going to have to figure out how we fulfill the wishes of the voters in those two important states."

Asked if she could remain in the race regardless of the outcome of the remaining voting, Clinton said she is "interested in finding out what the voters actually think because there's all kinds of speculation."

"It would be like predicting who's going to win the Indy 500 before it even started. We don't know," said Clinton, who campaigned with Indy race car driver Sarah Fisher in the home-stretch for the Indiana primary.

"Just so you know," said Fisher, who gave the candidate a tour of her $1-million racing machine, "we don't have reverse in this car."

The Indiana primary, in particular, tested the sentiments of voters who could easily cross party lines in an open primary.

And the Indianapolis Star has found Republicans voting Democratic, some with a sense of mischief, some a sense of adventure.

Among them was Meghan Ward-Bopp, 24, who bucked family tradition and asked for a Democratic ballot so she could vote for Barack Obama, though she plans to vote for Republican John McCain in November.

"I'm a hardcore Republican," she said, "but it's about who I wanted in second place in case McCain doesn't make it. ... I don't like the way this country's been run in the last 20 years. I'm sick of the dynasty (of two families) that's been running things."

Jim Adams, 36, voted for Clinton "to keep the race going beyond Indiana,'' the Star reported. "He's a McCain backer and enjoys watching the Democrats fight.... In the end, I think McCain is going to win.''

Kate Hayward wore a T-shirt: "Another Mama for Obama." Her husband, a Republican, also voted for Obama, she said.