Fox News projects that Hillary Clinton has won in Oklahoma and Tennessee; Barack Obama took Alabama and his home state of Illinois. Missouri, Connecticut, and Delaware all remain too close to call. (UPDATE: FNC decision team had AL too close to call until about 9:30)

More spin from the Clinton campaign on their victories below the fold — they say this demonstrates that Hillary Clinton can compete and win in red states.

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Los Angeles, CA-

After a debate where Mike Huckabee was largely left on the sidelines with Libertarian Ron Paul, due to a format that favored the two leading contenders, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, Huckabee is looking for a boost in the last days before the mega-state primaries on February, 5th. Huckabee today embarks on a pre-Tsunami Tuesday campaign swing that will lead him through many of the Southern, and Heartland states-like Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Georgia- that are at the center of his Southern state strategy; the last stand for this Little-Train-That-Could of GOP presidential campaigns.

” I am optimistic about our chances and the path forward seems clear,” Huckabee said, in a message titled “Full Throttle”, to supporters yesterday.”When I look at Super Tuesday, I see a number of key Southern states, and other strong  conservative states, that are likely to add to our delegate count and put us on the right track towards winning the Republican nomination.”

However, due to McCain’s  freight train-like momentum, after back to back primary wins, and gargantuan endorsements like the Governator’s today in California( a delegate-heavy Super Tuesday state), Huckabee’s effort, while herculean, could fall well short of it’s intended target. Verifiable signs of the tough road head for the Huckabee campaign are already appearing, like large hurdles in front of a sprinter, trying to catch up to the lead runner. According to poll numbers released today in some of those Southern states, McCain leads Huckabee by double digits.

Insider Advantage has McCain leading Huckabee in Tennessee, 33 to 25. In Georgia, where Huckabee campaigned recently, he is down 11 points, 35 to 24 (5% MOE).

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On a flight between Macon, Georgia, and Birmingham, Alabama, Sunday morning, Barack Obama took a few questions from reporters gathered in the aisle of the campaign plane. He walked back to the press section of the airplane to talk to the gaggle for about 7 minutes, as the plane was making its descent into Birmingham’s airport.

During the avail, he made it clear that Obama was still the underdog going into the February 5th contests - despite his overwhelming victory last night in South Carolina. Jumping from state to state and holding quick rallies - known as “tarmac campaigning” - is not how Obama won Iowa and South Carolina, where he spent a lot of time on the ground talking to voters and organizing a grassroots movement.

“It presents more of a challenge for us, I don’t think there’s any doubt about it,” he admitted, citing Clinton’s name recognition as a reason. “Here we’re going to have to work with a much more compressed schedule. It’s clear that Senator Clinton, I think, has the advantage in a lot of these states. We would expect them to do very well, but we’re going to campaign and compete across the country and we think we have a strong base of support and certainly coming out of South Carolina, I think we’ve got a lot of energy behind us.”

Obama remained mum when asked about Ted Kennedy’s endorsement, which has been confirmed by FOX News. “Ted Kennedy has not official endorsed my candidacy. I’ve had ongoing conversations with Ted since I’ve got into this race. At the point where he is clear about what he’s doing and wants to make it public, I will let Ted make it public.”

He was more forthcoming on Caroline Kennedy’s glowing endorsement in today’s New York Times, calling it “an extraordinary honor.” He said, “I thought the piece she wrote in the Times today, which I didn’t get a chance to see until last night, was deeply moving and I’m gratified. For somebody who, I think, has been such an important part of our national imagination and who generally shies away from involvement in day to day politics to step out like that is something that I’m very grateful for.”

And on the State of the Union address for which the Senator will return to Washington tomorrow:

“It’s not clear to me where the President wants to take the country in this last year. Obviously this will be his last State of the Union Speech. I suspect he may devote some time to try to explain his record over the last seven years. I am gratified that you’ve at least seen conversations with the White House and the Democrats and the rough outlines of a deal on an economic stimulus, but I hope the president recognizes that the problems we have are deep-seeded; they go beyond the immediate problems of the stock market and the credit markets. We’ve got an economy that’s been out of balance for a very long time, a lot of workers, a lot of middle class families that see their wages and incomes flat-lined over the last several years. We need to move aggressively forward, whether the president feels he can muster an aggressive strategy for the economic problems we face, I don’t know. I also suspect he will talk about Iraq and tout the reductions of violence there. I think the reductions of violence are a positive, so I believe that now is the time to send a clear signal that we’re going to begin pulling our troops out of Iraq. I don’t expect to hear that from the president.”

Birmingham, AL-

While campaigning in Alabama, Mike Huckabee, stepped into the fray between the two leading GOP candidates for the Florida primary, by defending John McCain from allegations by Mitt Romney  that he was” dishonest”. Romney had used that term after McCain accused him of supporting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

” Senator McCain and I disagree on some things like immigration and Human Life amendment, but I’ve never known Senator McCain to be dishonest,” Huckabee said to reporters, after a massive rally at Stamford University, outside of Birmingham.” Many things might be said about him but I would not attribute dishonesty to Senator McCain.”

Huckabee agreed with McCain that Romney had supported a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. Huckabee said that Romney supported a plan authored by Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor (D) that called for a “secretly-held” timetable  for withdrawal without a publicly disclosed date.

” I have seen some of Governor Romney’s statements on withdrawal,” Huckabee said.” I’ve seen the actual quotes and he did support that secret withdrawal plan, and its documented in a number of accounts.” 

 Earlier, Huckabee was met by a massive Alabama crowd at this Baptist university, a size that took campaign staffers, and school officials by surprise.  The auditorium where Huckabee  gave his remarks was  fully packed, but there was an amount triple that size in the overflow room. The “room” was actually a larger auditorium opened up at the last second to accommodate the long lines. Local police put the number of people at five hundred in the first smaller auditorium, and 2 thousand plus in the second auditorium. 2,500 plus, combined,according to the officials. Reporters covering the event placed the amount closer between 1,500 to 2,000.

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