Clinton Soldiers On in South Dakota

For the past two weeks Sen. Barack Obama has had as many as 40 staff people working in South Dakota - an amazingly high figure for a sparsely populated, often politically overlooked state with only 195,000 Democrats.

And even more surprising to some South Dakotans,  Sen. Hillary Clinton opened an office there this week and will be flying in to rally 500 supporters at a Sioux Falls airport hangar.

"That kind of took us by surprise," said Rick Hauffe, executive director of the South Dakota Democratic Party.

The surprise is that Clinton's campaign suddenly is putting so much effort into a state where six of seven superdelegates have endorsed Obama and the state's senior statesman, former senator and presidential hopeful George McGovern, this week switched his support from Clinton to Obama and called for Clinton to bow out of the race.

Some political pundits called the Democratic race all but over for Clinton after Tuesday's primaries, but the New York senator is forging on in the few states, including South Dakota, that still have upcoming primaries.

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