California dream team: Oprah, Caroline, Michelle

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February 3, 2008

LYNN SWEET blogs.suntimes.com/sweet

LOS ANGELES -- While Barack Obama stumps in St. Louis and Chicago on Sunday, he is sending to California a powerful trio of surrogates -- Oprah Winfrey, Caroline Kennedy and his wife, Michelle. Winfrey hosted a fund-raiser for Obama at her home near Santa Barbara last year and stumped with Obama in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

While Obama left Friday, not to return to the Golden State before Tuesday's vote, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is sticking around, with former President Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea on the trail here for her.

California is a sprawling political battleground with a boatload of interests and ethnic groups. The Golden State has 370 delegates at stake -- the most of any state -- and for the first time since 1972, it's a player in the presidential selection process, having moved its primary up from June to Tuesday.

Obama and Clinton have each been to California at least 12 times in the last year. Obama is catching up with Clinton in the polls.

For all the last-minute focus on California, the balloting really began Jan. 7, when Californians were allowed to start early voting, and almost half of the votes may have already been cast. No matter the results, it is highly unlikely that either candidate will grab a supermajority of the delegates to be picked as a result of Tuesday's balloting, no matter who wins the popular vote.

That's because the formula for allocating delegates is proportional -- no winner take all -- and very generous to a candidate who finishes in second place.

For weeks now, the Clinton ground game has been focused on snaring the votes of what's called here permanent absentee voters, with enormous emphasis on female registered Democrats, especially women over 40. Clinton herself headlines a rally in East Los Angeles on Saturday, targeting Hispanic voters.

The Obama team is working on a precinct-style ground game -- not common here --with an emphasis on younger and independent voters.