Candidates makes final pitches to South Carolina Democrats

ROCK HILL, South Carolina (CNN) -- The Democratic presidential candidates made their closing arguments to South Carolina Democrats on Friday in the 24 hours before voters head to the polls.

A win Saturday is particularly critical for Sen. Barack Obama, to show that his win in Iowa three weeks ago was not a fluke and to put him on an equal footing with Sen. Hillary Clinton, who beat Obama in New Hampshire and Nevada.

"To win parity with Clinton, he has to win South Carolina," said Thom Mann, a political analyst for the Brookings Institution.

A McClatchy-MSNBC poll conducted January 22-23 reported Obama leading with the support of 38 percent of the likely Democratic primary voters polled. Clinton was in second place with 30 percent, and Edwards was backed by 19 percent. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 5 percentage points.

The poll found that among black primary voters, Obama had an even larger lead over Clinton: 59 percent to 25 percent -- a significant fact considering that almost half of the voters Saturday are expected to be African-American.

But Obama is backed by only 10 percent of white voters, the poll found. Among whites, Edwards and Clinton are in a statistical tie, with Edwards backed by 40 percent and Clinton supported by 36 percent.

The lack of support from white voters could be a concern for Obama in the future.

"The concern all along has been the possibility of Obama, in spite of his broad, nonracial appeal, running poorly among whites," Mann said.

In South Carolina, Obama's background in grass-roots organizing has helped him attract college students and young African-Americans eager for change. But on Friday, Obama discussed the issues that he hopes will help him connect with voters that he has had difficulty reaching in the past -- such as veterans, women and older voters -- in an attempt to broaden his base of support. Watch how race and gender are influencing the race »

In a roundtable discussion in Columbia, South Carolina, the Illinois Democrat focused on everyday concerns like parenting, housing and dental care, and he discussed the case of his wife's father, who worked at a water filtration plant all his life.

"He was able to work, support a wife and two kids, buy a house, and ultimately help them go to college. I can't imagine someone doing that today," Obama said. "It is much more difficult, and as I said, it's very rare that you can have a family that can depend on a single paycheck. [It] puts more strain on not just financing, but also the parenting."

Clinton on Friday said she understands the concerns in voters' lives and wants to help, and she asked voters to put her in a position to make a difference.

During her campaign stops Friday, the New York senator focused on her agenda items: more money for veterans' health care, lower interest rates for student loans, universal health care and ending the war in Iraq.

"My goal is a strong and prosperous middle class." Clinton said during a campaign rally in Rock Hill, South Carolina, on Friday. "It is not the rich who made America great. It is the people who built this building, who did the work, who taught our children, who took care of the sick. It is the middle class and working families in America, and we want to give everyone a chance at upward mobility,"

"There's a lot of work to be done, and there are probably a million issues that you'd love to talk about, and I want to get to your questions. But I need your help tomorrow," she said. "I need your help to go out and vote for me, so I can move forward in this process."

And rather than direct her fire at her chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton focused on President Bush.

"I thought I was over being surprised by the Bush administration," Clinton said. "Some of what has happened the last seven years, you could not make up. You know, when the vice president shot someone in the face, I though 'that is the end, I just can't even imagine that.' "

Edwards was mostly overshadowed as Obama and Clinton engaged in sometimes bitter exchanges during the week, something the native South Carolinian has hoped to turn to his advantage by representing himself as presenting "the grown-up wing of the Democratic Party" on Saturday's ballot. Watch Edwards say he rejects 'personal sniping' »

"Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have brought their New York- and Chicago-style politics to South Carolina -- fighting with each other, tearing each other down," he said at a campaign rally in Greenville, South Carolina, on Friday. "But South Carolina's better than that, and you deserve better than that."

Playing off the recent bickering, Edwards on Friday launched an ad that highlights the heated back-and-forth between Obama and Clinton. The ad, called "Grown-up," is Edwards' latest effort to draw attention to his rivals' scuffle, while painting himself as above the fray, something he has also tried to do on the campaign trail.

"I'm not the glitzy candidate, and I'm not the candidate with 100 million dollars. That's the other two," Edwards said during a rally in Orangeburg, South Carolina, on Friday. "I'm also not the candidate spending all of my time bickering with another politician. I'm out here in the trenches, working and fighting for you." E-mail to a friend

CNN's Candy Crowley, Suzanne Malveaux and Jessica Yellin contributed to this report.

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