STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's Ina Jaffe reports on how three leading Democrats are campaigning leading up to the big votes on February 5th.
INA JAFFE: Barack Obama began his Sunday morning at the Harvest Cathedral in Macon, Georgia. His sermon text was the story of the Good Samaritan from the book of Luke, though it sounded a lot like the message he preaches every day.
INSKEEP: I am my brother's keeper. I am my sister's keeper. And that our destinies are bound up together.
JAFFE: A central focus of Obama's campaign is his appeal to independent voters, and Georgia is one of the February 5th states that allows independents to participate in the primaries. They can vote in the Alabama primaries, too, so that's where Obama headed next, to the State University at Birmingham, where he looked out on a sea of 9,000 cheering faces.
INSKEEP: Wow. Look at this crowd.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)
INSKEEP: Look at this crowd.
JAFFE: Obama said his landslide in South Carolina was no fluke. He got 80 percent of the African-American vote. He also won overwhelmingly among young voters, though he was backed by just 25 percent of whites. All in all, he said, his victory proved the skeptics in the media were wrong.
INSKEEP: We are going to write a new chapter in the South. We're going to write a new chapter in American history.
JAFFE: There is also a primary in Tennessee on February 5th, and after Hillary Clinton's defeat in South Carolina, that's where she went Sunday morning, beginning a new day at the Monumental Baptist Church in Memphis.
INSKEEP: Oh, this is the day the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
JAFFE: It's a controversial move because she and all the other Democratic candidates signed a pledge not to campaign in Florida after it moved its primary up into January. As punishment for this, the national party has stripped Florida of all its delegates. But Clinton said she'll try to get that changed.
INSKEEP: Florida will once again be a battleground state, and I want the voters in Florida to know that I hear them. Hundreds of thousands of Floridians have already voted. So clearly they are taking this seriously. They believe their voices are going to be heard and should be counted, and I agree with them.
JAFFE: As for John Edwards, he probably isn't in a party mood. He finished third in South Carolina, his birth state, where he won the primary four years ago. On NPR's WEEKEND EDITION, he told Liane Hansen he still plans to campaign in a whole lot of places.
M: We're going to Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Missouri, California. I think we're going to Alabama. I mean, these are the places I can carry around in my head right now. We may go to other places, too. I'm sure we will. Listen, this is a long-term process.
JAFFE: Ina Jaffe, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
