Hillary Clinton campaigns at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on election day, May 6, 2008. She received an endorsement there from driver Sarah Fisher. (Linda Davidson / The Washington Post)

By Dan Balz - Washington post

If Hillary Clinton hopes to prove she should be the Democratic nominee, today is the day to show it.

The political environment heading into Tuesday’s primaries in Indiana and North Carolina has been ideal from Clinton’s perspective. Barack Obama has been on the defensive over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the issue terrain is better than she could ask for.

Indiana is as close to a toss-up state as the Democrats have seen in a long time, giving Clinton the chance to demonstrate superiority in a head-to-head competition. North Carolina seemingly offers her an opportunity to embarrass Obama — if in no other way than by holding down his expected victory margin — in what should be solid territory for him.

Obama spent last week trying to shake the Rev. Jeremiah Wright off his back. His decision to break with his former pastor won applause from some Democrats and earned him superdelegate support. But Obama strategists know the issue has not gone away. As one Republican put it Monday, when you spend the first 20 minutes of “Meet The Press” answering questions about your pastor, you know you’ve still got a problem.

Economic issues, the staple of Clintonian politics, are at the center of the campaign now. Whenever Iraq dominated the debate, Clinton was on the defensive because of her vote to authorize the war. But Iraq, while important, has receded. Rising gasoline prices, the home foreclosure crisis, fears of job losses and recession, and, as ever, the cost and availability of health care, play to her inherent strengths as a champion of the middle class.

Obama has been dogged with question: Why didn’t he break with Wright sooner? Why can’t he win working-class white voters? Why does Clinton beat him in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania when he is heavily outspending her? The concentration on his problems has turned Indiana and North Carolina into tests he must pass — or face more questions about whether his once high-flying campaign has been permanently brought back to ground.

Clinton has largely escaped intensive scrutiny. Not, of course, on her gas tax holiday proposal. Economists and Obama have roundly criticized that idea, but to her apparent relish. Other ideas she has thrown out — putting OPEC in the dock at the World Trade Organization, for one — have not been well scrubbed. That is what happens when (a) you have won recent contests and (b) your chances of becoming the nominee are seen as remote.

As part of Post’s the “8 Questions” project that runs in Tuesday’s newspaper, I asked a group of strategists a ninth question: Has the emergence of the economy as the dominant issue in the election made Clinton a stronger general election candidate than Obama? Or do her high negatives make Obama the party’s better choice?

More of the respondents said her high negatives remained such a problem that Obama was likely the stronger general election nominee, despite the shift in the issue terrain.

Those who said yes cited the Clintons’ long history on the economy. “What’s left of the Clinton brand remains economic common sense,” wrote one Democrat. “Economy has allowed HRC to shine with her depth of knowledge and feel for the economy [and] has highlighted Obama’s weakness,” wrote a pro-Clinton Democrat.

But they were in the minority. Bill Carrick, who was a top strategist in Dick Gephardt’s 2004 campaign, which was heavily focused on the economy, said Obama is still the party’s better choice. “Senator Clinton has adjusted to the ascendancy of economic issues with great skill but her negatives have gone even higher as the campaign has become nastier,” he wrote. “Obama is still better positioned for the general election.”

“The nominee has to be able to say, ‘John McCain supports all of George Bush’s economic policies. I’m going to make the economy work for the middle class again,’” wrote Steve Murphy, another ex-Gephardt adviser who was part of Bill Richardson’s campaign team this year. “I think Obama can handle that.”

Can Clinton overcome those perceptions, which may be a major obstacle for superdelegates? One Democratic strategist offered this thought on Monday. “If she performs higher than expected [in areas where her negatives are high], it might suggest that folks are starting to believe she is the better general election candidate and are willing to put aside their negative assumptions about her.”

That makes Indiana and North Carolina so important to Clinton. She needs strong performances — victory in Indiana and a close finish in North Carolina — to prompt a reappraisal of her general election prospects by the remaining uncommitted superdelegates.

After Tuesday, there will be no real opportunity for her to change the race. The remaining states offer predictable outcomes and the delegate math remains all in Obama’s favor. Whether she will risk a bloody rules or credentials fight over Michigan and Florida is not clear right now, but as one Democrat put it, Clinton probably doesn’t have the time to overtake Obama and still unify the party.

Still, the past week has played to her advantage and she has campaigned as if she knows it. A slow grind to the final primaries on June 3 is not in her interest. If she cannot capitalize in Indiana and North Carolina, there’s little reason to think she will be given another opportunity like this during the rest of the campaign to demonstrate why she should be the nominee. That’s why May 6 long has been circled on calendars as so significant.