Hillary Clinton failed to win the landslide double whammy she needed to rescue her White House campaign today.

Barack Obama scored a thumping victory over Mrs Clinton in North Carolina, while she eked out a wafer-thin win in Indiana.

Well after midnight, hours after they declared the North Carolina result, the former first lady had taken Indiana by just 21,000 votes out of 1.2million ballots cast for a victory margin of 51 percent to 49 percent.

In the Deep South state, Mr Obama romped home by 56 percent to 42, and used his victory speech here to cast himself as the Democrats' heir apparent for the November election against Republican John McCain.

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"This fall we intend to march forward as one Democratic party united by a common vision for this country because we all agree that at this defining moment in our history, a moment when we are facing two wars, an economy in turmoil, a planet in peril, a dream that feels like it's slipping away for too many Americans," he said.

The Illinois senator, bidding to be the country's first black president, said he was now fewer than 200 delegates away from securing the Democratic nod to take on Mr McCain.

Before flying out of Indiana to Washington DC, as the TV networks were still agonising over the rustbelt state, Mrs Clinton proclaimed victory there and said it was "full speed on to the White House."

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