Forget football. Massachusetts' hottest contest may come on Super Tuesday, when Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama square off here in the Democratic presidential primary.
The tight race between two strong Democratic contenders has energized volunteers across the state and set political machinery into high gear.
Both candidates will make appearances in Massachusetts on the eve of the primary. Obama even has a Super Bowl ad running.
"It's not just an afterthought: There is a real live campaign going on here in the air and on the ground," said John Walsh, chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party.
On Super Tuesday, 22 states will hold their presidential primary contests, and Massachusetts has the fifth-largest number of delegates to offer the winner. The Democratic candidates are fighting furiously for every one, and neither is taking a Massachusetts win for granted.
Though Clinton has long been the leader, the latest poll showed the race tightening. US Senator Edward M. Kennedy's endorsement of Obama on Monday carried huge symbolic significance that ignited Obama's Massachusetts campaign and lit a fire under Clinton's.
"I think it woke people up," said Senate President Therese Murray, a Plymouth Democrat and Clinton supporter who blasted prominent male Democrats earlier this week for abandoning Clinton.
The spirited race and inspirational contenders are also attracting new volunteers in Massachusetts.
Among the dozen people holding Clinton signs and drawing the supportive toot of car horns at a Dorchester rotary yesterday was a former Brookline principal, Carol Schraft, 64, who was uninterested in politics before retiring in 2006.
"When people asked me what I was going to do, I said I was going to get Hillary Clinton elected president," she said. "I want to see a woman president before I die."
Clinton's visit on Monday will be her second trip through Massachusetts within a week, as Obama picks up more of the Massachusetts establishment in Clinton country.
On Monday, Obama will appear in Boston with a host of supporters, including US Senator John F. Kerry, who is first speaking for Obama in California. This weekend, Governor Deval Patrick will be out campaigning for Obama at cafes and T stops from Northampton to New Bedford and will tap the grass-roots organization he built during his 2006 campaign to get out the vote. On Monday and Tuesday, Patrick's sound trucks will boom for Obama through Boston.
Meanwhile, Mayor Thomas M. Menino's urban voter-turnout network plans to put 800 people to work for Clinton on Tuesday, including about 80 drivers who will deliver elderly Clinton voters to the polls and hundreds of others who will hold signs and call voters. The same crew helped Clinton win the New Hampshire primary Jan. 8 by identifying voters with spotty voting records and sending 176 foot soldiers to knock on their doors, over and over again, asking for support.
The mayor will also join Massachusetts legislators who are backing Clinton at Copley Square tomorrow to embark on two separate bus tours of cities across the state, reconvening in Worcester for a rally with US Representative James P. McGovern.
Yesterday, Clinton's legislative cadre started going on the attack, criticizing Obama's healthcare plan in a 20-minute conference call with reporters. Fifty Massachusetts lawmakers sent Obama a letter rebutting his comments on the state's healthcare plan.
"He criticized the plan that I don't think he fully understands," DiMasi said. "I want to let people know this is working."
But highlighting the political tightrope that Massachusetts Democrats are walking, DiMasi was careful when Kennedy's name came up.
"I know he's extremely interested in this issue, and he wants to have quality care accessible to every American," DiMasi said.
About 15 minutes after DiMasi made his comments, Obama's campaign sent out a video link illustrating how Kennedy thinks that will happen with Obama in the White House.
"It's the passion of my life, and I wouldn't support Barack Obama unless I was absolutely convinced that he was for universal, comprehensive healthcare," Kennedy said, sitting next to Obama as he spoke with Matt Lauer on the "Today" show yesterday.
"I have tried for 38 years to get universal, comprehensive healthcare. I have supported 12 different proposals to get there. Elect Barack Obama, and we will get there."
The tension points to the down-to-the-wire contest in Massachusetts. In a Rasmussen Reports telephone survey conducted Monday, Clinton got 43 percent of respondents to Obama's 37 percent.
"I think they are neck and neck," DiMasi said yesterday. "I don't think there's any clear leader right now."
Massachusetts matters next week not only because of the number of delegates - 8 percent of the Super Tuesday cast - but also because of the viability of both candidates.
"I think it's a very important state because it's one of those places where both sides think they can win," said Tad Devine, a Democratic consultant not affiliated with a presidential campaign.
Massachusetts is not a winner-take-all state for Democrats, but delegates are allocated based on the vote within each of the state's 10 congressional districts.
Adding to the intrigue, not all congressional districts are created equal.
Though most deliver six delegates to the popular winner, the state's two most southeastern districts, represented by US Representatives Barney Frank and William D. Delahunt, each get seven, based on the Democratic vote in the districts in the last elections for president and governor.
That could give one candidate a slight but vital edge.
But which one? Frank is supporting Clinton; Delahunt backs Obama.
"Obviously we want those delegates," said Murray, the Senate president. While phone banking and literature drops are ongoing statewide, she said, efforts are "concentrated on where we need to pick up our delegates."
Delahunt, meanwhile, is campaigning for Obama today with President Clinton's national security adviser, Anthony Lake.
"I have a good feeling," he said. "Politics is not exactly a science. It's visceral. But I'm feeling something."
Matt Viser of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
