WASHINGTON: Wisconsin and Hawaii will become the latest battlegrounds in the struggle for the Democratic presidential nominee on Tuesday, while Republican John McCain is looking for victories to knock his last remaining major rival out of the race.

In the Democratic presidential race, Sen. Barack Obama  is looking to increase his lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton in the race for delegates with wins in the Wisconsin primary, one of the nation’s oldest, and the Hawaii Democratic caucuses, the state were the Illinois senator was born and where he still has family.

Obama was able to stake a claim on the front-runner position after winning eight contests in a row, including the Potomac primaries in Maryland, Virginia and DC last week.

McCain’s final push

McCain, the presumptive  Republican nominee, is looking for big wins in the Wisconsin and Washington state primaries to demonstrate he is starting  to unify the Republican party behind his nomination, including  conservatives upset by his positions on immigration, campaign finance and other issues.

‘Barack plagiarised’
Top advisers to Hillary Rodham Clinton accused Democratic rival Barack Obama of plagiarism Monday, the latest effort by her campaign to undermine the Illinois senator’s credibility.

Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson, during a conference call with reporters, pointed to a speech Obama delivered at a Democratic Party dinner in Wisconsin Saturday that lifted lines from an address given by his friend, Governor Deval Patrick.

The passage in question from Obama’s speech addressed the power of oratory, and he used it to rebut Clinton’s oft-repeated charge that he is long on rhetoric and short on policy specifics.