Senator Clinton may have a home field advantage over Senator Obama, but the presidential hopeful from Illinois doesn’t appear ready to cede any New York City turf just yet, especially in Brooklyn.

During a swing through the city yesterday, Mr. Obama topped off his visit with a rousing speech in Brooklyn, where he pumped up volunteers and supporters at a sold-out fund-raiser.

“Every single place we go it looks like this, people from all walks of life, you got black folks, white folks, Asian folks, Latino folks, and Native American folks and disabled folks,” Mr. Obama said, NY1 reported.

At the Marriott Hotel fund-raiser, a man identified by Fox-5 News as an “immigrant doorman,” Gregory Smith, introduced the senator and said he would give Mr. Obama his last dollar.

“Gregory giving me the money that he gave meant more than anybody writing a $2,300 check where it’s a lot easier for them to write $2,300,” Mr. Obama said. A ticket to the fund-raiser cost $25, and the event was standing room only and supporters also filled an overflow room at the hotel.

A grassroots political organization, Brooklyn for Barack, has been stirring up excitement for the candidate over the past few months, and political analysts say Mr. Obama’s best shot at winning delegates from Mrs. Clinton may be in the city’s most populous borough.

A chairwoman of Brooklyn for Barack, Jacqueline Esposito, said there is tremendous support for Mr. Obama in Brooklyn, and she tried to stamp out conventional wisdom in political circles that says Mrs. Clinton is certain to win in New York.

“There’s nothing about this campaign that is conventional. This entire campaign is about change,” she said. “Our organization is Brooklyn for Barack, and we are confident that February 5 will be a wonderful day for us here in Brooklyn.”

Assemblyman Karim Camara, who represents Crown Heights and is supporting Mr. Obama for president, said the senator has a “great chance” of winning Brooklyn.

“He’s willing to come in here and articulate his agenda,” he said. “This grassroots movement in Brooklyn has been stronger than any other Barack Obama movement in any of the other boroughs.”

Earlier in the day, Mr. Obama had described a blueprint for such a victory at SEIU Local 1199 headquarters in Midtown: “What you are joining isn’t just a political campaign; it’s a grassroots movement for change. And that kind of grassroots change is something I’ve got some experience with. After college, I took a job as a community organizer in Chicago, working with a group of churches to rebuild neighborhoods that had been devastated by the closure of nearby steel plants. It was hard work, but we kept at it, and block by block, we transformed those neighborhoods,” Mr. Obama told supporters at the organizing meeting.

Mr. Camara said he expects more elected officials from Brooklyn “who are independent minded, reform minded,” to come out in favor of Mr. Obama in the coming months. Already, five city and state elected officials from Brooklyn have declared their support for Mr. Obama, the most in any borough.

A partner at the political consulting firm Prime New York, Gerald Skurnik, said it might be tough for Mr. Obama to carry Brooklyn, but not impossible.

Brooklyn is home to 815,551 Democrats and an estimated 350,000 are African Americans, Mr. Skurnik said. He said among likely primary voters in Brooklyn, 45% are African American or Caribbean American.

Delegates in the Democratic primary are awarded to candidates proportionally, based on their performance in congressional districts.
“I can definitely see him getting enough votes to get a fair number of delegates,” Mr. Skurnik said.

City Council Member Charles Barron, a Democrat of Brooklyn who is a former Black Panther, said he has not yet decided which presidential candidate to support, but added that no one should assume Mrs. Clinton is going to win New York.

“I think Barack Obama has a very, very good chance of doing very well in New York and will surprise quite a few people,” he said. “I think he can do well in Brooklyn.”

Mr. Barron did caution the candidate, saying that before he can win Brooklyn, he “has to visit our neighborhoods.”

“I’m not talking about the Marriott,” he said, taking a dig at the location of Mr. Obama’s fund-raiser in Brooklyn yesterday. He suggested Mr. Obama “walk the streets of Harlem, Bed-Stuy, Brownsville, Crown Heights.”

A professor of public administration at Columbia University, Steven Cohen, chuckled when asked if Mr. Obama could beat Mrs. Clinton in Brooklyn, saying it’s unlikely that any out-of-state candidate could top such a popular senator on her home turf, but added that Mr. Obama could make a good showing.

He noted that primaries are dependent on voter turnout and added that because Mr. Obama’s supporters are “committed and passionate,” there’s a chance he could be better in the primary than polls would indicate. “That still doesn’t mean he gets to win in her back yard,” he said.

A consultant from Bedford-Stuyvesant who attended Mr. Obama’s fund-raiser in Brooklyn last night, Achebe Powell, was smiling after the energetic rally. She said the event brought back memories of the time she saw President Kennedy at a political rally when she was 20 years old, before he was elected to the White House.

“He really cares about the individual issues and the collective spirit,” she said. “This makes for a better country, a better Brooklyn, and a better world.”