Obama sets sights on Utah

Even as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was losing last Tuesday's primary in New Hampshire, his supporters here in Utah were getting a pep talk.

Not that they needed it. Despite the Illinois senator's second-place finish, the nearly 100 people crammed into Obama's west-side campaign office in Salt Lake City were still plenty enthusiastic.

"We never thought the nomination was locked," Anne Filipic, Utah's new state director for Obama, told the crowd as the muted television flashed the news of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire victory. "We know we have a lot of work to do."

Filipic, a field director for Obama in Iowa, had just arrived in Utah — literally. She and five other members of Obama's campaign team in Iowa jumped in their cars shortly after he won the caucus vote there Jan. 3 and drove to Utah.

Their job is to ensure Obama wins Utah's Feb. 5 Democratic primary. With six paid staffers, Obama's campaign is investing heavily in Utah even though its primary is being held the same day that more than 20 other states go to the polls, including New York and California.

Clinton, too, has an office in Utah. "Her campaign is working hard to win every delegate vote, and I'm optimistic she'll do well here," said Donald Dunn, the New York senator's representative in Utah.

Obama and Clinton supporters in Utah have been making calls to Democrats in the early voting states, and both campaigns are sending volunteers to help out in neighboring Nevada, where Democratic caucuses will be held on Jan. 19.

Clinton, though, has not campaigned in Utah, although she sent her husband, former President Bill Clinton, to speak at a rally at the University of Utah in November. Obama drew hundreds of people to a hastily organized rally just outside Park City in August.

Misty Fowler, the volunteer leader of Utah for Obama, remembers that just six days after Obama announced his candidacy early last year, 60 people showed up at the first organizational meeting in Utah even though it was held outdoors in the cold.

"I was amazed," Fowler said of the unexpectedly large number of volunteers. "What they said to me is that they felt hope, they felt energized, that something positive was going to come out of this."

Ellen McAllister, 26, a preschool teacher who lives in West Valley City, was wearing an Obama T-shirt at the election-night gathering. "This is the first time I've ever wanted somebody to win," she said. "I'm not political at all, but I'm starting to get into it."