WASHINGTON, 5 February 2008 — Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called her hometown New York Giants’ surprise Super Bowl victory a “real omen” for her Super Tuesday chances.
But the latest USA Today/Gallup poll shows that her closest competitor, Sen. Barack Obama, has erased what was once a double-digit lead for Hillary.
All of the exhausted White House hopefuls launched one last frenzied day of campaigning before Super Tuesday — the biggest one-day White House nominating contest in history.
Obama is effectively tied with Hillary in the Democratic showdown, while Sen. John McCain looked set to take a firm grip on the Republican Party’s nomination.
In California, once seemingly a lock for Hillary, Obama is gaining steam, though it remains to be seen if the late surge will be strong enough. California’s primary is the largest of about two dozen contests scheduled for this week’s Super Tuesday contest.
On Sunday, California First Lady Maria Shriver endorsed Obama for the Democratic nomination for president, becoming the latest member of the Kennedy clan to line up behind the senator from Illinois.
Shriver, the wife of California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, told supporters at an Obama rally in Los Angeles that the state was “at the epicenter of change.”
“I would ask you to go out, to follow your heart, to be proud that you’re doing that, and remember that so goes California, so goes the nation,” she said. Shriver is the niece of Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy and President Kennedy. Both JFK’s daughter Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and the Massachusetts senator have endorsed Obama in the past week.
During Sunday’s event, Schlossberg appeared with Shriver, Obama’s wife Michelle and talk-show host Oprah Winfrey.
On Friday, Sen. McCain and Obama won the backing of the Los Angeles Times, one of the most-read newspapers in the United States and especially in delegate-rich California.
In separate editorials, the paper praised Obama as an “inspiring leader who cuts through typical internecine campaign bickering,” and McCain as a consistent conservative with “fundamental individualism.”
Both presidential endorsements are the paper’s first since 1972.
Obama also collected some other key endorsements. MoveOn.org, the liberal political action committee that claims more than three million members, endorsed Obama’s White House bid — the first time the group has made a primary endorsement.
The endorsement came after the group allowed its members to vote over the last two days on either Obama or Hillary.
Obama beat the New York senator 70 percent to 30 percent. “Our members’ endorsement of Sen. Obama is a clear call for a new America at this critical moment in history,” said Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org’s executive director.
