PREVIEW: Clinton, Obama battle for delegates in massive primary vote

Feb 2, 2008, 10:03 GMT

The United States senator from New York and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton addresses a rally at San Diego State University in San Diego, California on 02 February 2008. Clinton will face the only remaining Democratic candidate, the United States senator from Illinois Barack Obama, in the \'Super Tuesday\' primary to be held 05 February 2008. EPA/SEAN MASTERSON

Washington - The race to secure the Democratic nomination for president has become a sprint to secure support across a broad swath of states in the largest ever day of primary voting on Tuesday.

After a series of state-by-state nominating contests in which candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could focus on key voters in relatively small areas, both have been forced to turn their attention virtually overnight to nearly half the country as more than 20 states head to the polls on so-called Super Tuesday.

The now two-person race between the candidates - who could be the first woman and African American to be president - essentially amounts to a battle for delegates to the national nominating convention in August, where the party's nominee will officially be named.

The contest briefly soured on race issues with comments by the Clinton camp that Obama's aides portrayed as racially tinged, but both candidates appeared to make nice at a debate in California Thursday, where they focussed on the Iraq war, health care and the economy.

The Democratic Party's system of awarding delegates proportionally, rather than giving all a state's delegates to the winner, means both candidates must spread out their efforts. It also will make it more difficult for any one candidate to effectively secure the party's nomination on Tuesday, still if Clinton does well she can use the media blitz to clinch her frontrunner status.

Delegate rich states like California, New York and New Jersey look to favour Clinton, but with California, by far the largest state to vote, awarding delegates based on smaller congressional districts, both campaigns have been forced to conduct their own complicated calculus of how to secure the most delegates.

Clinton is counting on her name recognition and experience, with polls showing her with clear leads in many states voting on Tuesday.

But Obama has been picking up ground with his appeals for change, even drawing comparisons to former president John F Kennedy and winning the endorsement of JFK's brother, Senator Ted Kennedy, and daughter, Caroline Kennedy. The departure from the race of a third candidate - former senator John Edwards - also puts additional voters in play, many of whom will likely turn to the Illinois senator.

In a debate Thursday, Clinton stressed that it was time for every voter to turn their attention to the contest.

'What are the criteria that you have for determining who you will vote for, what you think our country needs, what you and your family are really looking for?' she asked.

Both Clinton and Obama have spent recent days flying around the country, with stops for Clinton in Connecticut, Massachusetts and California among others. Obama has focused on smaller states, like his home state of Kansas in the Midwest, which Democrats have often written off as a Republican stronghold.

Obama's campaign said Thursday that he raised a record 32 million dollars in January alone. That has allowed him to turn to a series of television ads in 24 states, hoping to win over voters who are not as familiar with his campaign, the Washington Post reported.

The ads are designed both to play up his theme of change and to get voters to the polls on Tuesday - an ad running in Georgia shows Obama telling supporters 'the world as it is, is not the world as it has to be' and ends with text urging voters to turn out.

But he is also attempting to reach out to unlikely supporters, running a Spanish language ad in California, where 40 per cent of the electorate is Hispanic, an ethnic group that lent its support to Clinton in the Nevada caucus last month, costing Obama a win there despite support from a key union of casino workers. At rallies in California, he has emphasized that his campaign can transcend race, while telling of his work with Hispanic people during his days as a community organizer in Chicago.

He is also counting on key support in the South, where strategists hope a large African American population will support him, as it did in South Carolina last week, winning him that contest.

Clinton's smaller ad blitz also features a Spanish language ad portraying her as a long-time friend of the Latino community. Her ads are designed to portray her as experienced at fixing problems, a theme repeatedly hammered by her campaign, while implying Obama is not experienced enough to lead the country. One such commercial shows a skydiver plunging to symbolize the declining economy, noting Clinton can help to turn the situation around.