MACON, Georgia (AFP) - White House hopeful Barack Obama took his message of unity on the road Sunday one day after trouncing rival Hillary Clinton in a race-tinged battle in South Carolina’s Democratic primary.

The African-American senator from Illinois said his two-to-one margin over Clinton in Saturday’s contest in the heavily black southern state demonstrated that Americans want to transcend racial and partisan divisions.

“I think people want change. I think they want to get beyond some of the racial politics that, you know, has been so dominant in the past,” he said on ABC television’s “This Week” program.

After a tense battle which included accusations that both campaigns were “race-baiting” in the South Carolina contest, Obama — who seeks to become the country’s first-ever black president — swept the field with 55 percent of the vote against Clinton’s 27 percent and ex-senator John Edwards’ 18 percent.

Although exit polls showed a clear slant among white voters for Clinton and Edwards, who are both white, Obama said his victory showed that most people rejected the “slash and burn” politics of the 1990s, when Clinton’s husband Bill was president.

“I do think that there is a certain brand of politics that we’ve become accustomed to … where we basically think anything is fair game,” Obama said.

“There is no doubt that I think that in the ’90s, we got caught up in a slash and burn politics that the American people are weary of.

“And we still see it in Washington today.”

Obama’s remarks came as the close-fought campaign looked toward the vast “Super Tuesday” vote of February 5, when more than 20 states vote in both Democratic and Republican primaries, and which could determine the candidates for the November 4 presidential election.

While Obama was in Georgia Sunday — another heavily black state — Clinton moved to Tennessee to campaign. Both have two state nominating contests under their belts, with Obama enjoying a slight lead in delegates to the Democratic convention that will decide the nominee.

Clinton Sunday praised Obama’s victory and suggested it was no surprise, telling CBS television that “I’ve always said that that is where we would be at the end of these early states.”

“What I’m focused on is now we’re moving forward. We have these 22 states ahead of us.”

She also defended her husband Bill, who was accused of injecting nasty personal attacks and polarizing racial issues into the fight ahead of the South Carolina primary.

“Maybe he got a little carried away. You know, that comes with a hard-fought election,” she said of the former president.

“It also comes with sleep deprivation which, you know, I think is marking all of us, our families, our supporters.”

“He is going to continue to be with me and support me and speak out for me,” she added.

Clinton also brushed off former president John F. Kennedy’s daughter’s endorsement of Obama as reflecting the “hard choices” Democrats have between two good candidates.

“Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with that sense of possibility,” Caroline Kennedy wrote in Sunday’s New York Times.

Analysts said Obama may not get too much of a momentum “bounce” heading into February 5, as earlier polls showed Clinton with sizeable leads in delegate-rich states such as California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

Together these states account for 970 delegates, nearly half the total at stake on February 5 and a quarter of the total to be seated at the party’s August nominating convention in Denver.

Republicans, meanwhile, traded blows ahead of Tuesday’s primary in Florida.

Republican Senator John McCain attacked rival Mitt Romney on the sensitive issue of Iraq as polls showed the two in a dead heat.

“Mitt Romney’s position on the war in Iraq has been a study in flexibility,” the McCain campaign said in a statement, criticizing him for last year advocating “secret timetables” to pull US troops out of Iraq.

Romney countered Sunday on CNN that McCain’s campaign had distorted his record.

A poll by InsiderAdvantage published Thursday put McCain just a point ahead of Romney in the crucial Florida contest, with 23 percent support to 22 for Romney.

Source: news.yahoo.com