Barack Obama insisted yesterday that he shared the same values as voters in white, small-town America, as the controversy over his former pastor’s incendiary remarks continued to damage his candidacy.

Mr Obama – seeking to put the issue behind him during an hour-long televised interview – spoke as new polls showed Hillary Clinton pulling ahead in Indiana and gaining ground in North Carolina, before their next primary battles tomorrow.

The surveys showed Mrs Clinton drawing overwhelming support from white, blue-collar voters and signs of growing alienation to Mr Obama among the group in a Democratic race more polarised along race and class lines than ever. The former First Lady, who in recent days has extolled the virtues of gun ownership and hunting, has even campaigned from the back of a pickup truck as she depicts herself as a champion of the working man.

Mr Obama, who disowned the Rev Jeremiah Wright last week, said that his former pastor had “put gasoline on the fire” when he made a provocative appearance before journalists seven days ago. He repeated assertions that the US Government had introduced the Aids virus to kill black people and defended his “God Damn America” remark made from the pulpit a week after the September 11 attacks.

Mr Obama called the issue a distraction, but said he remained confident that voters would look beyond the controversy. “I love this country. It has given everything to me. It is what I have been fighting for,” he told Meet The Presson NBC. He added: “It is important for the American people to understand my story and how it connects to theirs.” He said that he was instilled with the “values rooted in small-town America”. In the past 48 hours Mr Obama has returned to the theme that was so successful earlier this year: that he is an agent of change, while Mrs Clinton is a cynical embodiment of Washington’s political gridlock.

The centrepiece of that argument is Mrs Clinton’s support for a summer holiday break from tax on petrol – an idea first proposed by the Republican nominee-elect John McCain – when prices are at record highs. She says that it will give working families a respite when they fill their cars.

Economists have derided the plan. It has little chance of being signed into law by President Bush. Mr Obama, who called it a “classic Washington gimmick,” said that it would save consumers 30 cents a day. Mrs Clinton was pandering to voters. “This is what passes for leadership in Washington: phoney ideas, calculated to win elections instead of solving problems.”

Mrs Clinton, appearing on This Week on ABC, defended the plan. She decried “this mindset where elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that disadvantage the vast majority of Americans”. Mr Obama also criticised his rival for saying recently that as president she would obliterate Iran if it launched a nuclear attack on Israel. Mr Obama said: “It’s not the language we need right now.”

The results in Indiana and North Carolina will weigh heavily on the Democrats’ super-delegates – the party’s elected officials and leaders – who will likely determine the race. Mr Obama has an insurmountable lead among elected delegates, but neither candidate will finish the primary process on June 3 with enough to win the nomination outright.

If Mrs Clinton wins Indiana, and challenges Mr Obama in North Carolina – where his 23-point lead has been cut to single digits – it could add to concerns among super-delegates that the Wright controversy, and Mr Obama’s remarks that small-town voters cling to guns and religion, has made him a liability.

Mrs Clinton, meanwhile, will hope that last Saturday’s Kentucky Derby will not be a metaphor for her campaign. The horse she backed, Eight Belles, finished second, and then collapsed and was put down. The winner was the favourite, Big Brown.

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