(Xinhua) -- Hundreds of people in Los Angeles on Saturday joined a "Walk of Change" held by supporters of presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama in search of campaign volunteers and donations across the country. The L.A. volunteers were signed up to walk the precincts in and near the downtown area, joining door-to-door canvassers in 33 cities across the nation to register voters, chat with people about the Illinois senator, and solicit grassroots campaign contributions, said Obama's local campaign spokeswoman Mary Jane Stevenson. The candidate himself was walking precincts in Dubuque, Iowa, where it's just 219 campaign days to the state caucuses, which traditionally start the formal election season. "We picked this part of town because it's the most ethnically-diverse part of the city, and it's reasonably dense so we can talk to people," Stevenson said.
A nationwide review of last week's political polls by the political web site Real Clear Politics shows New York Sen. Hillary Clinton 9.5 points ahead of Obama. The most-recent nationwide poll, released yesterday by Fox News, has Obama trailing Clinton by 13 points. Only the USA Today/Gallup poll, taken a week ago, has Obama in front, with a one percentage point lead.