Kennedy Will Endorse Obama In Blow to Clinton

Supporters reach over a fence to embrace Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) after a speech Saturday in Columbia, S.C. Obama said his campaign faces challenges in the upcoming flurry of primaries on "a much more compressed schedule." (By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post)
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Obama traveled Sunday to Birmingham, where an estimated 9,000 supporters cheered him as he spoke for more than an hour. "Our states are very similar," said Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), an Obama supporter, comparing Alabama and South Carolina. "Barack hasn't been here as much, but we've got 28 points to play with," Davis said, referring to Obama's South Carolina victory margin.

Obama beat Clinton by more than 2 to 1 in the Palmetto State, with 295,000 votes. The rout closed out the first phase of Obama's campaign on a high note. But even the candidate conceded that daunting challenges await as he pivoted to a 22-state playing field with just nine days to build support.

His campaign hopes that Kennedy's backing will help Obama to cultivate Hispanics, older voters, and traditional Democrats like union members, groups that have not proven his strongest in the first four contests. But campaigning on tarmacs, with television cameras as his main audience, does not match Obama's grass-roots style. And Clinton, Obama acknowledged, continues to enjoy the built-in advantage of national name recognition, despite her setback in South Carolina.

"It presents more of a challenge for us -- I don't think there's any doubt about it," Obama said in his plane on the way to Alabama. "What we have seen in the first four contests is that the more people know me, the better I do. In Iowa, we had huge amounts of time and we were able to win across the board. In these other early states like South Carolina, people have had a lot of interaction with our organizers. Here we are going to have to work with a much more compressed schedule."

Former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.), coming off a third-place finish in South Carolina, has vowed to remain in the contest despite not making a strong showing since the Democrats' initial test in Iowa, where he finished second to Obama. Fred Baron, Edwards's top fundraiser and a close adviser, said financial backers believe in his candidacy "passionately" and have promised to work to keep his bid afloat. Baron said January has been Edwards's best month of fundraising over the Internet, and that he has brought in $3.2 million this month.

Though badly stung by her defeat, Clinton appeared determined, if subdued, when she faced reporters Sunday morning in Memphis. She smiled little, showing few of the flashes of enjoyment that she had shown after her New Hampshire and Nevada victories.

Clinton addressed her husband's increasingly controversial role in her campaign and disputed the notion that he has added to divisions within the Democratic Party, calling him someone who "brought our country together" when he was president. He was, Clinton asserted, a president who sought to "repair the breaches and mend the divides" between blacks and whites.

"I think Americans from every community know what his life's work has been," Clinton told reporters.

Staff writer Matthew Mosk contributed to this report.