After last week's Super Tuesday contests, Clinton and Obama remain close in the number of delegates needed for the nomination, although Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, noted after the Maine caucus victory that the Illinois senator picked up 57 additional pledged delegates since Super Tuesday. Still, the Democratic battle could drag on for months and could be decided by the top elected officials and party leaders, known as superdelegates.
The Clinton campaign is showing the more immediate effects of the protracted struggle. The campaign announced a shake-up yesterday, with Patti Solis Doyle out as manager, replaced by Clinton's former chief of staff in the White House, Maggie Williams.
The move comes as Clinton has struggled to match Obama in recent fundraising and is facing several weeks of possibly poor results before the March 4 primaries in Texas and Ohio, where the campaign feels it is strong.
Solis Doyle "has done an extraordinary job in getting us to this point - within reach of the nomination," Clinton said in a statement yesterday.
Obama allies sounded optimistic about their prospects this week. They boasted of their army of 3,000 volunteers and said that Obama's scheduled appearances today at rallies in College Park and Baltimore should draw overflow crowds.
"There is an excitement in the air that I have not seen in my 25 years in public office," Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the Baltimore Democrat who is co-chairman of Obama's Maryland campaign, said in a conference call with reporters before heading to a Cambridge rally. Obama's extensive organization in Maryland has reached a "crescendo," said Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, another campaign co-chairman, who said volunteers are working from 10 local offices to make phone calls and drop fliers on doorsteps.
"We feel pretty good about all three of these contests," Obama's deputy campaign manager, Steve Hildebrand, told reporters. "We are also quite nervous about them."
According to the Web site RealClearPolitics, Obama had an average lead of 21 percentage points over Clinton in the three most recent Maryland polls. Among Republican voters, McCain was up by more than 30 percentage points in the polls, which have been inaccurate during this election season.
Obama's strength in the region is coming in large measure from black voters.
