Campaign takes toll on two Dems

With no competition until November’s general election, John McCain is taking it easy.

NEW ALBANY, Ind. (AP) — How can they not be tired?

Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are undeniably exhausted. They’ve been campaigning hard for more than a year, and their wall-to-wall schedules won’t let up anytime soon. Neither wants to cede ground in their epic struggle for the Democratic nomination.

Fatigue, however, breeds unforced errors — and both candidates have made some in the past few weeks.

He turned in a weak debate performance in Pennsylvania, took heat for saying residents of small-town America were bitter and inadvertently praised Republican John McCain. She, too, had a sub-par debate and mistakenly claimed to have landed under sniper fire in Bosnia as first lady.

“Sometimes. Yes, of course,” Obama, 46, acknowledged Tuesday when asked whether he was exhausted.

The Illinois senator was in the midst of a near 20-hour campaign day. He left his hotel at 6 a.m. for satellite TV interviews in Philadelphia and didn’t stop moving until his plane touched down Wednesday in Chicago at 1:30 a.m.

Fourteen years his senior, Clinton laughed off a question about how she maintained a grueling schedule.

“It’s been a 15-month campaign and, if everything had been as much fun as Pennsylvania, it wouldn’t feel like 15 years,” the 60-year-old said — uncharacteristically showing weariness.

As the Democrats continue their long days of tussling, Republican nominee-in-waiting McCain has pared back his schedule considerably from the before-sunup to after-sundown days of the GOP primary fight. Energetic at 71, he would be the oldest person ever elected president.

Since the Arizona senator wrapped up the nomination last month, he has kept to just one or two public events a day. To be sure, he’s at work behind the scenes raising money and preparing for the general election. But most weekends he opts for down time in Phoenix or at his cabin in Sedona, Ariz., resting up for the fall fight.

It’s a luxury Obama and Clinton don’t have.

The next Democratic primaries — Indiana and North Carolina — are May 6, less than two weeks away, and the stakes are extraordinary.

So, the excruciatingly long days will continue.

The drawn-out race clearly weighs on Obama; he talks about it at every stop.

“I’ve been running for president for about 15 months now, which means that there are babies who are now walking and talking, who were born since I announced for president,” he said again Wednesday, campaigning in this Ohio River city.

To combat exhaustion, Obama catnaps on his plane. Lithe and athletic, he prioritizes daily exercise to keep up his energy. But there are physical signs of the stress; his hair has grown grayer since he began campaigning.

For her part, Clinton is a veteran of her husband’s back-to-back White House races and is keenly aware of the toll it takes on body and spirit. She, too, takes short naps on her plane and eats a steady diet of hot peppers, which she believes has helped her stave off illness.