MACON, Ga. — Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, each claiming a pair of early victories, now leave the concentrated campaigning of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina for an unwieldy and costly 10-day dash through 22 states that hold presidential primaries or caucuses Feb. 5.
Obama’s surprisingly easy victory in South Carolina puts greater pressure on the New York senator to carry states she long has considered her strengths, including New York, Arkansas, Connecticut and the megastate of California.
Obama’s overwhelming support from South Carolina’s black Democrats boosts his hopes of winning three other former Confederate states voting Feb. 5: Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.
The two candidates underscored those states’ importance immediately. Clinton campaigned Saturday night in Nashville, and Obama traveled Sunday to Macon, Ga., and was then going on to Birmingham, Ala.
Also Sunday, the offices of Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., announced that the senator would endorse Obama today.
Candidates are doing little or no campaigning in delegate-rich Florida, which moved its primary up to Tuesday in an attempt to play a bigger role in choosing the presidential nominees. The Democratic National Committee said it would refuse to seat the state’s delegation at the national convention in late August. But it is expected that the eventual nominee will try to reverse that decision because of Florida’s crucial role in the general election.
Its next stage will be strategic, targeted and complex. Democrats award delegates based on the proportions that candidates win in each state, with no winner-take-all states. That virtually forces them to compete in every state to some degree.
“Now it’s a delegate race,” said Obama campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs, “so there’s not a state you’re not going to do a little bit in.”
“This isn’t going to be judged on, ‘I won six states, you won this amount of states,’” Gibbs said.
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