Obama criticizes high gas prices as Clinton raps him on campaign donations … McCain joins former rival Huckabee in Arkansas on campaign tour … Clinton steps up lobbying of undecided superdelegates after winning Pennsylvania primary … DNC panel schedules hearing to review challenges to loss of Michigan and Florida delegates … Poll: Obama, Clinton running tight race in the Hoosier State … Reid, Pelosi send word to Democratic superdelegates: Make up your minds

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Obama presses on gas prices

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama on Friday blamed high gasoline prices on Washington and a political establishment, including his rivals for the presidency, that he says hasn’t stood up to oil companies.

“The candidates with the Washington experience — my opponents — are good people,” Obama said at an Indianapolis gas station. “They mean well, but they’ve been in Washington for a long time and even with all that experience they talk about, nothing has happened.”

The result, the Illinois senator said, is that consumers are suffering.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, derided his promise to take on special interests while rallied students at Indiana University in Bloomington.

She also criticized Obama campaign ads that say he doesn’t take money from oil companies or their political action committees.

Obama has accepted money from oil company executives and employees. But so has Clinton.

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McCain teams with former rival Huckabee

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Republican John McCain and former rival Mike Huckabee campaigned together for the first time Friday, with Huckabee joking that they were so civil as opponents they don’t have to “unsay” any bad things.

McCain said the two had a lot of time to get to know each other when both were dismissed as the longest of long shots early in the GOP campaign. Chatting with reporters on his campaign bus, McCain recalled the days when they were relegated to the most distant ends of the podium in the early Republican debates, drawing few questions from moderators.

“Governor Huckabee and I had lots of time to chat with each other,” McCain laughed. “We became friends on the campaign trail.”

Huckabee, hugely popular with social conservatives, has been mentioned as a potential running mate for McCain, who needs to shore up his support among conservative Republicans.

McCain said he didn’t want to mention any names because that quickly leads to an invasion of privacy for anyone being considered.

When reporters asked Huckabee if he planned to campaign for McCain, it was McCain who jumped in to answer with a ready “yes.”

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Clinton lobbies superdelegates after Pa. win

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton, capitalizing on her Pennsylvania primary victory, reached out this week to uncommitted Democratic superdelegates.

“Her pitch was that she had just had a substantial victory in Pennsylvania and her campaign had raised quite a bit of money because of it,” said Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma. “There wasn’t a hard push or a hard sell.”

Boren remains uncommitted but noted “it’s really important to me how my district voted” — for Clinton.

Clinton’s presidential campaign has spent months playing defense while Barack Obama whittled away at her lead in superdelegate endorsements. Her supporters urged undecided superdelegates to hold off on endorsing a candidate — if they weren’t ready to back her. Let the primaries play out, they said, and decide which candidate has the best chance to win in November after all the contests are over.

Obama, meanwhile, urged quick endorsements, hoping to build momentum toward the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination.

Obama has picked up 83 percent of the superdelegate endorsements since Super Tuesday, narrowing Clinton’s superdelegate lead to 259-236, according to the latest tally by The Associated Press. Since Tuesday’s primary, Obama has picked up three superdelegates and Clinton has added one.

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Delegate challenges to be heard

WASHINGTON (AP) — A plan to award half-delegates for the disputed Michigan and Florida Democratic presidential primaries is going before party leaders.

The co-chairs of Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws committee sent a memo to members Friday announcing a meeting May 31 to consider the idea.

The Rules and Bylaws committee stripped Michigan and Florida of all their national convention delegates because they held primaries too early. Democratic National Committee members in Michigan and Florida have filed challenges to restore the delegates.

Under the challenges, all the superdelegates from both states would get to vote. The pledged delegates from Michigan and Florida would only count for half votes.

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Poll: Obama, Clinton running tight race in Indiana

WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are running about even in the Democratic presidential race in Indiana, a new poll suggests.

Obama has 41 percent compared with Clinton’s 38 percent, according to the WTHR-Indianapolis Star poll. That is inside the poll’s margin of error. The survey also found 21 percent of respondents undecided.

Among Hoosiers who said they would vote in November, Obama beat Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain, 49 percent to 41 percent. Clinton broke even with McCain; both were backed by 46 percent of those polled.

The poll of 535 likely Democratic voters in the May 6 primary election and 500 Hoosiers statewide was conducted by telephone April 20-23 by Selzer & Company of Des Moines, Iowa. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points for likely Democratic primary voters and 4.4 percentage points for Hoosiers statewide.

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Reid, Pelosi to superdelegates: Make up your minds

WASHINGTON (AP) — The word is coming down from top Democratic leaders Sen. Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to party superdelegates: Make up your minds.

Majority Leader Reid, D-Nev., said Thursday that he, Pelosi and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean might send a letter to the nearly 800 national convention superdelegates urging them to make endorsements soon after the final primaries on June 3.

“The three of us may have to write a joint letter,” Reid told reporters.

Admonitions from Pelosi and Reid to superdelegates to quickly declare their preferences would be most keenly felt by the almost one half of congressional Democrats who have yet to declare for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. A failure to do so could mean stoking the ire of the two most powerful Democrats in Congress.

Pelosi said Thursday night on CNN’s “Larry King Live” that “it would be constructive” for superdelegates to declare by mid-June.

It’s not clear, however, that the pressure will come in the form of a letter or more subtly.

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DAILY TRACK

Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are statistically tied nationally in the Democratic presidential race, according to the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update.

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THE DELEGATE BREAKDOWN

Barack Obama: 1,724.5

Hillary Rodham Clinton: 1,593.5

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THE DEMOCRATS

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama campaigned in Indiana.

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THE REPUBLICANS

John McCain spoke to a college class in Little Rock, Ark.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“You gotta help me out here, though — my husband loves North Carolina, and he loves barbecue, and he’s been eating a lot of it across the state.” — Hillary Rodham Clinton, asking North Carolinians for help in keeping her husband, former President Clinton, healthy while he campaigns for her across the state.

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STAT OF THE DAY:

Hillary Rodham Clinton has an edge among the Indiana’s superdelegates. Five have endorsed Clinton, while three support Barack Obama. The state’s four other Democratic congressmen have yet to choose sides.