CANTON — An energetic crowd of Democratic partisans greeted Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton with shouts of “Yes, she can” here Thursday even as the candidate herself conceded her rival may well win Tuesday’s primary vote in Mississippi and a majority of the state’s 40 convention delegates.

Speaking to about 1,000 party officials and officeholders in Canton at the party’s Jefferson Jackson Hamer Day Dinner, Clinton said she would still care about Mississippi regardless of the outcome and noted her rivalry with Sen. Barack Obama was making history.

“How many of our parents or our grandparents, or even we ourselves, ever dared to hope that a woman and African-American could by vying for Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States?” Clinton asked.

Overall, Obama has 1,569 delegates to 1,462 for Clinton. The senator from New York was in Hattiesburg this morning and was heading from there to Wyoming, which has its party caucus Saturday. Former President Bill Clinton will campaign for her in Tupelo today and Meridian on Saturday

Mississippians vote Tuesday in both party primaries, where Democrats will send 33 pledged delegates and seven superdelegates to their national convention. Republicans will head to the polls as well, though Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., sewed up the nomination with a string of victories this week.

Clinton spoke 45 minutes at the state party event dinner where admission for the seated meal started at $125 per plate. Obama was invited, but did not attend. Instead, the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a civil rights veteran and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, spoke on his behalf. Obama is to visit the state Monday.

“The economy has to be the focus of the next president,” Clinton said, later adding she favored investigating the cause of recent spikes in gasoline prices and that funding her plan for universal health care would require “only a small percentage” of taxpayers’ income.

She favored calling for troop withdrawals from Iraq within 60 days of taking office and redirecting energy toward Afghanistan, characterizing the region as “the forgotten front line in the war on terrorism.”

Comments the former first lady made during the run-up to the Iowa caucuses about that state and Mississippi’s failure to elect a woman as governor or to federal office got scant attention near the end of her speech, where she acknowledged Mississippi’s two female lieutenant governors and honored the memory of the late Evelyn Gandy, who died in December.

“I know one way to make a real statement here in Mississippi and that is for Mississippi to vote for a woman on Tuesday,” Clinton said.

Mary Katherine Brown, chairman of the Warren County Democratic Executive Committee, said she wasn’t surprised one of the two remaining candidates showed up for the annual dinner, given the tightness of the race between the two sitting U.S. senators. “She needs Mississippi. Every vote she can get,” Brown said, adding there was no consensus favorite among the 15-member local panel.

Earlier Thursday, state Rep. George Flaggs, D-Vicksburg, was named co-chair of Clinton’s campaign in Mississippi, along with former state senator and party chairman Gloria Williamson. Flaggs was one of a few state-level officials escorting Clinton as she made her way from the state through a throng of reporters and onlookers straining for a glimpse of Clinton — shielded from view by a wall of cell phone cameras.

Some onlookers were more creative than others at expressing their admiration for Clinton and the Democrats in general.

“On the back of my truck, it says Hillary for president,” said Kelly Jacobs of Hernando, who arrived at the event with about 30 pro-Hillary buttons pinned to her clothing and draped with a similar banner.

Clinton’s visit came the same day as campaign finance announcements by she and Obama. Clinton said Thursday she had raised $35 million in February. Obama beat that figure with a record $55 million.

Obama’s February total was his second record. He raised $36 million in January, more than any other presidential candidate who has ever been in a contested primary.

The next time candidates will show up in Mississippi will be Sept. 26, when the first debate between eventual party nominees will be at the University of Mississippi.

Also on Tuesday ballots will be primaries for House seats in Mississippi’s four congressional districts and to decide whether former state Rep. Erik Fleming or Shawn O’Hara will be the Democratic nominee to face incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran. A special election to replace former Sen. Trent Lott, who resigned in December, will not be until Nov. 4.

Upon entering polls, any Mississippi voter may request either party’s ballot, but may not vote both ballots.

Mississippi has 40 delegates to the Democratic National Convention, 33 of whom will be awarded proportionally by the primary vote. Seven, including U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Vicksburg, are superdelegates who can decide individually which presidential candidate to support. Thompson has said his vote will go to Obama.

The Democratic nomination will go to the candidate who receives at least 2,025 of the 4,048 total delegates. About two-thirds of the delegates are pledged by through primary and caucus votes, most of them proportionally. The remaining delegates, called superdelegates, are mostly party and elected officials and go to the convention free to vote as they please.

On both Republican and Democratic ballots in Mississippi, all who have been primary candidates since the selection process started in January will be listed on ballots, although most have conceded or are no longer campaigning.