Casper: Barack Obama, thrown off stride by an aide's miscues and recent losses to Hillary Rodham Clinton, sought to regain lost momentum in Wyoming's caucuses on Saturday in an increasingly hostile fight for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Obama still holds the lead overall in national convention delegates, but Hillary revived her candidacy on Tuesday with victories in primaries in Texas, Ohio and smaller Rhode Island. Obama won Vermont.
Only 12 national convention delegates are at stake on Saturday in caucuses around the least populous US state, a small but critical prize in the close race for the party's nomination.
While Wyoming will not give either candidate much in terms of elected delegates, wins in that state and upcoming contests could help sway the 800 so-called superdelegates - senior party officials and lawmakers whose votes are not linked to state primary or caucus results.
Their votes will be needed to secure the nomination for either Obama or Hillary.
Heading into Wyoming, and the next showdown in Mississippi on Tuesday, Hillary sought to lower expectations, saying she believes Obama has a better chance of winning these contests.
"I said, 'Well you know what, I'm going to go to Wyoming anyway - I know it's an uphill climb, I'm aware of that," Hillary told an audience of more than 1,500 at a community college in Cheyenne, Wyoming on Friday. "But, you see, I am a fighter, and I believe it's worth fighting for your votes."
She set a similar tone while campaigning in Mississippi on Thursday night and Friday morning. She said a win for her in that state would be a heavy lift because of Obama's appeal there.
A total of 33 delegates are at stake in that race. The next major battle is in Pennsylvania on April 22. That contest offers the biggest prize left in the nomination race: 158 delegates.
But Obama was struggling to weather a controversy after his top foreign policy adviser, Samantha Power, called Hillary a "monster" in an interview with a Scottish newspaper.
Power, who resigned on Friday, also said in another foreign media interview that Obama may not be able to withdraw all US combat troops from Iraq within a year as he has promised on the campaign trail.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Harvard University professor tried to retract the snub at Hillary, and then apologised for it when it splashed across the headlines.
Obama's campaign said he decried the characterisation of the former first lady.
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"She is a monster, too - that is off the record - she is stooping to anything," The Scotsman quoted Power as saying in the interview conducted Monday, but which was published on Friday.
Power's comments about Iraq came in an interview with the BBC. She said Obama's position is that withdrawing all US troops within 16 months is a "best-case scenario" that he will revisit if he becomes president.
Campaigning in Mississippi on Friday, Hillary questioned the Iraq comments based on Obama's public statements.
"He has attacked me continuously for having no hard exit date, and now we learn he doesn't have one, in fact he doesn't have a plan at all," Hillary said while campaigning in Mississippi.
Obama has actually shortened his original 16-month commitment to say he will end the war in 2009, and he reiterated that promise at a rally on Friday.
Obama snapped back and told voters in Casper, Wyoming, that Hillary "doesn't have standing to question my position on this issue" because she voted in 2002 to authorise the war.
But Hillary, who is trying to become the first female US president, faced her own hurdles.
She backpedaled from comments she made in October suggesting Mississippi was a backward place for women's progress, and tried to downplay her remarks on Friday during a campaign swing through that Southern state.
At a town hall meeting in Mississippi, where some in the audience were undecided or leaning toward Obama, Hillary raised for the second time this week the possibility that she might run with the Illinois senator on the Democratic presidential ticket.
Obama has not ruled it out, but says it is premature to be having those discussions.
The rivals were neck-and-neck in a national poll that Newsweek magazine carried out just after Tuesday's primaries.
Obama had 45 per cent to Hillary's 44 per cent, with a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. The magazine polled 1,215 Democratic voters March 5-6.
Although Hillary has done well in large primaries, Obama has prevailed in 12 of the 15 caucuses, which rely on greater campaign organisation and voter commitment than primaries.
A total of 12 delegates are still to be awarded in Texas, a state that held both a primary and caucuses on Tuesday.
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The epic battle between Hillary and Obama has given Wyoming Democrats - outnumbered more than 2-to-1 by Republicans in Vice President Dick Cheney's home state - a relevancy they have not experienced in a presidential race in nearly 50 years.
"Wyoming is usually not thought of as a momentum state, but it happens to fall on a calendar at a good time for both of them," said Kenneth Bickers, political science chair at the University of Colorado who is an expert in Western politics.
"Both of them need to be able to claim a victory. Both of them need whatever delegates they can get to help move their delegate count in a positive direction."
A victory in Wyoming would give the winner a slight boost going into Mississippi, where Obama is again favoured because of the state's significant black population. Obama, who is aiming to become the first black US president, has carried a large majority of African-American voters.
Obama holds the lead in delegates, 1,571-1,462, but Hillary has the edge with superdelegates: 242-210.
A total of 2,025 delegates is needed to win the nomination at the party's convention in late August, and neither candidate will have the necessary majority without superdelegate support, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.
Only in the past few weeks have the campaigns stepped up their presence in Wyoming, opening offices and calling voters and sending mailers.
The first visit came on Thursday, when former President Bill Hillary made three appearances in the state.
The candidates followed on Friday. Hillary held town-hall meetings in Casper and Cheyenne. Obama held a town hall meeting in Casper and a rally in Laramie at the University of Wyoming, counting on support from college students.
Obama has been running television and radio ads in the state, while Hillary has been running radio ads.
About 59,000 registered Democrats are eligible to participate in Wyoming's 23 county caucuses.
The division between Democrats could benefit Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain: Many of those who responded to the Newsweek poll said they would vote for McCain if their preferred Democratic candidate was not nominated.
McCain has already surpassed the number of delegates needed to clinch his party's nomination at the Republican convention in September.
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