Edwards: Janitors Continue Rights Push

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards speaks in Berkeley, Calif., on Sunday, March 4, 2007. Edwards appearance before several hundred supporters was part of a college tour aimed at young voters. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) (Noah Berger - AP)

"I think it's going to be over after South Carolina," Biden said. "I'm going to be spending a lot of time here."

That includes spending time courting independents in a state where voters don't register by party. "If the Democratic nominee cannot attract independents, Democrats cannot win," said Biden.

Stumping in the state's rural heartland, the senator from Delaware said Iraq remains the key issue.

"Iraq is sort of that boulder in the road that you have to move before you can get to the rest of the issues," Biden told a group at Coker College in Hartsville.

Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has advocated a plan to split Iraq into three regions controlled by Shia, Sunni and Kurdish interests.

Biden said he has more depth on foreign policy issues than other candidates, but that he would not put down any candidate in his own party.

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SEASIDE, Ore. (AP) _ Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign may be picking up steam in Oregon.

Giuliani, who leads in a number of recent national polls, easily won a straw poll Sunday among delegates to the Dorchester Convention, an annual gathering of influential Oregon Republicans. He picked up 60 votes from attendees, nearly twice that of his closest competitor, former Georgia Rep. Newt Gingrich, who finished with 35 votes.

Among the other marquee candidates, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has received endorsements from Oregon GOP party chair Vance Day and former gubernatorial candidate Kevin Mannix, pulled 23 votes. Arizona Sen. John McCain brought up the rear with 19 votes, though he has won the endorsement of Oregon's most prominent Republican, U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith.

The Dorchester straw poll, while a small sampling, can be telling. In 2006, Portland lawyer Ron Saxton won the gubernatorial straw poll in a field of three candidates and went on to win the party's nomination.

Other candidates to place in the poll included former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, with eight votes and Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, with 10 votes.

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Associated Press writers Jim Davenport contributed to this report from South Carolina and Julia Silverman contributed from Oregon.