(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-02-05 08:00

The Northeast was their battleground for the day, an arc of states stretching from New Jersey and New York to Connecticut and Massachusetts. Apart from Clinton's home state of New York, the polls told a similar story in each — and in Missouri and California — with the former first lady trying to hold off Obama's late rush.

Obama's campaign was eager to claim the underdog's role. "Senator Clinton is certainly the favorite on Feb. 5, given the huge leads she has held in many of these contests throughout the course of the campaign and the political, historical and geographic advantages she enjoys in many of these states," Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, wrote in a memo to reporters.

Democratic presidential candidate US Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) reaches out to shake hands with volunteers during a visit to her campaign office in Boston, Massachusetts February 4, 2008. [Agencies]

In a conference call with reporters, Clinton strategists Howard Wolfson and Mark Penn predicted the former first lady would emerge from Super Tuesday with more delegates than Obama. But they agreed the race is far from over. "Many of us will be making our reservations for Texas and Ohio and perhaps Pennsylvania and beyond that," Wolfson said, speaking of contests taking place in March and April.

Clinton's first stop Monday was in New Haven, where she graduated from Yale Law School more than three decades ago.

Penn Rhodeen, a public interest lawyer who worked with Clinton as a student, recalled her showing up on his doorstep wearing purple bellbottoms.

"It was so 1972," he recalled, praising Clinton for her longtime interest in helping children.

"Here is the abiding truth we know — you have always been a champion for children. Welcome home, dear friend. We are so proud of you."

Clinton briefly grew emotional, wiping her eyes with her hand. "I said I would not tear up. Already we're not on that path," she said to laughter.

Obama campaigned in New Jersey within sight of the Meadowlands, the home of the New York Giants, who defeated the previously unbeaten New England Patriots on Sunday night to win the Super Bowl. "Sometimes the underdog pulls it out," he said, talking about himself as much as a football team. "You can't always believe the pundits and prognosticators."

With so many states to cover, and so little time, the candidates relied on surrogates to expand their reach.

Former President Bill Clinton spoke before a large number of Hispanic students at Santa Ana College in California, where he said he was part of the reason they should vote for his wife. "You know we have always been there for you, in good times and bad, we've been there for California," he said.

Obama campaigned with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy at his side, trying to close once-large gaps in the polls in the Northeast, including the senator's home state of Massachusetts.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, campaigning alongside Romney, told reporters that if voters "want a conservative as the nominee of this party, you must vote for Mitt Romney. Because Mitt Romney is the only person in this race that can stop John McCain and the elite in the party who don't as much care about those issues that a lot of folks in Georgia care about."

But former Sen. Bob Dole, the party's 1996 presidential candidate, came to McCain's defense. "Whoever wins the Republican nomination will need your enthusiastic support," he wrote conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who has been critical of McCain. "Two terms for the Clintons are enough."

Largely overlooked in the chaos of the campaign was the opening of voting for Democrats living overseas in more than 30 countries. The first ballots to pick delegates were cast at midnight in Indonesia, where Obama lived as a child.

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