Kentucky happy to be focus of Democratic politics

COVINGTON, Ky (Reuters) - The state of Kentucky, best known for thoroughbred horses and bourbon, is surprised and a little excited to find itself at the center of Democratic presidential politics.

"Usually Kentucky doesn't count, so this is great," said law student Erica Stacy, 24, as she anticipated voting for Sen. Hillary Clinton on Tuesday in one of the last contests in the state-by-state race for the party's presidential nomination.

While Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, has written off the state's election as one that will surely go to his opponent, Clinton is crisscrossing Kentucky and fighting for every vote.

Most commentators, however, already count her out for the big prize -- Obama has a solid lead over Clinton in delegates to the Democratic Party convention in August who will pick the candidate for the November presidential election.

Kentucky and Oregon vote on Tuesday, with Oregon expected to go to Obama and Kentucky to Clinton. With just three states left after that, the rolling green hills of Kentucky have become one of the former first lady's last stands.

The birthplace of such American heroes as President Abraham Lincoln, frontiersman Kit Carson and boxer Muhammad Ali, the state is the home of the Kentucky Derby -- the top U.S. horse race -- and has rich farmland, coal fields and a growing automobile assembly industry.

"I am proud to be campaigning in Kentucky. Now my opponent said the other day he wasn't coming back so I've got the whole state to myself," Clinton told a "get out the vote" rally at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green on Sunday.

"You don't tell some states that they can't vote and other states that have already had the opportunity that they're somehow more important," she added.

But some states are more important -- and rarely is Kentucky in that list. A mostly rural, white, and working-class state that voted for President George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, Kentucky is considered reliably Republican and is unlikely to be seriously contested by Democrats in November.

Its significance has come down to just how big a victory Clinton can achieve in Tuesday's primary to bolster her argument that she is the preferred candidate of the nation's middle-class heartland voter.

MARGIN OF CLINTON VICTORY

"It's pretty clear that Clinton is going to win. The real issue is going to be the margin of victory. If (Obama) gets the margin to under 25 percentage points, his people will be happy," said Donald Gross, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky.

A huge win by Clinton could give the New York senator a high note on which to end her campaign, after which Democrat leaders hope she will work with Obama to reunite the party.

That Kentucky has any importance at all is a surprise. Most people expected the race to be sewn up by one of the candidates, as it was for the Republican party and its presumptive nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Laura Mester, 46, a huge Clinton fan, spent Saturday making phone calls for Clinton's campaign in Covington, while her 9-year-old son Adrian made campaign signs. They were both out at the candidate's weekend rally, hoping to get a photo.

Even Mester is surprised she got the chance to help the campaign, confessing she'd only been a volunteer for a week and a half. She said voters she spoke to during her telephone effort were also taken aback that the election had lasted long enough for Kentucky to have a say.

"Many people were excited that their vote mattered," Mester said, adding that the people she spoke to were about "half and half" split between Clinton and Obama.

A random sampling of diners at a restaurant in Edgewood, Kentucky, found support for both Obama and Clinton -- and even several undecided Democrats.

"I've sort of always been a Hillary supporter but I like Obama's vision, charisma, and his equanimity. He's unflappable," said retired teacher Marsha DeWitt, 61. "But I am concerned he doesn't have enough economic and international experience because of his youth."

But Sean Dempsey, an English major at University of Louisville, said he's backing Obama all the way.

"He's smart, young, not deeply enough into politics to be cynical," said Dempsey, 21. "I don't really like Hillary Clinton at all."

(Additional reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by David Storey)