Michael Goldman, a longtime Democratic political consultant, posed a question to the hundreds gathered at Brooksby Village in Peabody yesterday morning:

Does Sen. Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama matter to you?

"About two out of 250 people raised their hand," said Goldman, a John Edwards supporter who was there to talk politics with Congressman John Tierney in front of Democrats and independents.

Kennedy's endorsement - and that of his niece, Caroline Kennedy - was big news in the national media yesterday. How much impact it will have on the primaries here - where voters will go to the polls a week from today - and elsewhere, however, remains to be seen.

"Are there going to be people saying, 'I was with Hillary, but now I'm with Obama? No," said Goldman, who worked on Kennedy's unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1980.

"Are there people that will give (Obama) another look? Absolutely. ... The truth is, you have people who are huge Kennedy supporters who are supporting both Barack and Hillary."

If nothing else, the endorsements - in a race viewed as wide open going into the Feb. 5 primaries - have energized local supporters of both candidates, who have already been working the phones and logging the miles to campaign for their candidates.

Ann Mitsopoulos of Peabody, a Hillary Clinton supporter, estimates she's already made more than 1,000 calls on her cell phone to help Clinton's showing on the North Shore.

Clinton supporters have a phone bank in downtown Beverly, and many others call from home.

Based on the responses she's gotten, Mitsopoulos has seen support spread out almost evenly among Clinton, Obama and Edwards.

"Usually by now I have a good feel of who's doing what," Mitsopoulos said.

Signs and phone calls

Yesterday, Mitsopoulos was on her way to Boston to hold signs at the Statehouse, where Clinton had scheduled a campaign fundraiser. Other North Shore Clinton volunteers canvassed neighborhoods, knocking on doors in South Peabody over the weekend.

They've also dropped campaign literature at front doors and plan to do sign-holding between now and next Tuesday.

"I honestly feel if she doesn't get in, we won't have a woman president in our lifetime - and I'm only 47," Mitsopoulos said.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Hathaway, an Obama campaign volunteer from Ipswich, has been organizing sign-holding events in the center of town on weekends. He and a half-dozen other volunteers have been meeting at a home in Ipswich to make hundreds of calls to North Shore Democrats encouraging them to support Obama. They hope to open a downtown office if Obama advances to the general election.

Their efforts will only intensify in the race up to primary day with other Obama events in communities like Salem, Beverly, Boxford, Essex and Manchester-by-the-Sea.

"I think the Hillary Clinton campaign is just relying on the Democratic machine," Hathaway said. "It seems the people that are more fired up about change in the way politics is done - those people really align themselves with Obama and his message."

According to Goldman, Kennedy's vote of confidence could have two beneficial effects for Obama: It dominated the 24-hour news cycle, giving him lots of positive publicity, and it might also counter some of the criticism dogging Obama about his lack of experience.

"At least one person has stood up and said, 'I think he can do the job,' and it's somebody important in the case of Kennedy and Obama," Goldman said.

GOP unimpressed

The state Republican Party wasted no time issuing a statement using the Kennedy endorsement to link Obama to high taxes and big government.

"Barack Obama wants to change Washington, but this endorsement exposes Obama as another left-wing Washington insider," Robert Willington, the party's executive director, said in the statement.

But all the buzz may merely add to the excitement of what is, in some ways, an extraordinary primary campaign.

With all the early focus on Iowa and New Hampshire, there was a good chance that a clear nominee would have already emerged by the time Massachusetts voters headed to the polls.

Not anymore.

For the first time in recent memory, voters here will head to the polls with no clear-cut idea of who will emerge as their party's nominee.

"Now we're saying, 'No wait, we have a way to impact this race,'" Hathaway said.

And that could mean a bigger turnout.

"People are going to take a good hard look and realize their vote matters," Goldman said. "I think turnout will be better than people think."

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Staff writer Chris Cassidy can be reached at 978-338-2526 or by e-mail at ccassidy@salemnews.com.