Barack Obama won Georgia big tonight, as expected; the first state to close its polls on this long night was called for Obama by the networks at 7pm on the dot. But Hillary Clinton’s camp says no big deal — they never devoted resources to the state, and every poll since Iowa has shown Obama up big.

In a memo to reporters outlining talking points for their surrogates, the Clinton campaign says “we have 21 states that are still outstanding where we expect to pick up a significant number of new delegate,” adding “we feel very good about the numbers that we’re seeing.”

Read the full Talking Points Memo after the jump

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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.”