INDIANAPOLIS | The Democratic candidates for governor continued to take second billing to presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on Sunday night.

Jim Schellinger and Jill Long Thompson each spoke for less than 10 minutes to the crowd of 2,300 Democrats gathered for the state party's annual Jefferson Jackson Day Dinner at the Indiana Convention Center. Clinton and Obama, who are battling for the 72 delegates at stake Tuesday in Indiana's rare relevant presidential primary, were the featured speakers.

Lake County Sheriff Rogelio "Roy" Dominguez introduced Long Thompson, a former congresswoman from northeast Indiana.

"She is smart. She is tough. She is tested," Dominguez said. "And believe me when I tell you she will give 'My Man Mitch' the fight of his life."

Long Thompson promised to lead an economic recovery in Indiana, and "stop this mad obsession that Gov. (Mitch) Daniels has with selling off our state's assets."

Meanwhile, Laura Schellinger introduced her husband as a bonafide Hoosier, not someone "driving around the state in an RV in a ball cap and a flannel shirt trying to look like one of us." The mocking reference to the Republican governor's 2004 campaign drew thunderous applause from the partisan crowd.

Schellinger himself delivered an applause line by jokingly apologizing to Clinton and Obama for forcing their campaigns to work so hard in Indiana to escape the shadow of the gubernatorial primary. The Indianapolis architect also pumped up the crowd with a pledge to pursue universal health care, calling it "a right not a privilege from the cradle to the grave."

Long Thompson and Schellinger square off Tuesday, with the winner advancing to a November showdown with Daniels, who has no GOP primary opponent.