Obama eyes South Carolina win

Hillary Clinton yesterday called for calm as she slugged out the last rites of a race-tainted primary in South Carolina, where polls foresee a bounce-back win for her Democratic foe Barack Obama. Saturday's first-in-the-South party nominating showdown is the last battle in a single contested state, before the tense White House race goes national with nearly two dozen contests on "Super Tuesday," February 5.
Obama is hungry for victory, after losing the previous two contests to the former first lady, but an unexpected defeat would likely deal a hammer blow to his hopes of taking her on, on the national stage.
Clinton backers beseeched voters not to pick Obama, simply because he is the first African-American with a realistic shot at the presidency, arguing Clinton's resume is superior.
"If all the black people in the world voted for the black people where would we go?" said local councilwoman Bernice Scott, as Clinton opened her day at a the chapel of a largely black college here.
"If all the white people in the world voted for the white people? Where would we go?"
As Democrats eked out every last vote here, Republicans cranked up the pace of their sprint towards Tuesday's Florida primary, a make-or-break moment for the stuttering campaign of former front-runner Rudolph Giuliani.