Barack Obama’s prospects of winning the Democratic Party nomination and ultimately the White House may depend on hordes of enthusiastic youngsters like Edmund “Teddy” Nicholson, from Lewes, East Sussex.

The 18-year-old political novice is spending his gap year after leaving Sevenoaks School campaigning for the Illinois senator across America. He spent two weeks sleeping on a couch in New Hampshire before moving south with Mr Obama’s army of youthful volunteers to prepare for next week’s “Super Tuesday” contests.

He has just helped to open an Obama campaign outpost in the backroom of a dentist’s office in Savannah, Georgia — one of only two Super Tuesday states where Mr Obama is ahead in the polls.

“One of the reasons I am out here is that I like American politics more than British politics,” Mr Nicholson said. “In this country people believe in the political system. They believe that, particularly with a candidate like Obama, greats things can be done. I am tired of the cynicism of British politics.” Mr Obama hopes the energy and commitment of volunteers like Mr Nicholson will enable him to replicate the success of South Carolina, where a big grass-roots effort gave him a two-to-one win over Hillary Clinton.

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Using foreign volunteers in a US campaign carries the risk of a backlash, with even native English-speakers sounding odd to Americans. When, during the 2004 election, a British newspaper asked readers to send political letters to residents of an Ohio county, it provoked a furious reaction.

Another problem facing Mr Obama’s eager troops is the Clintons’ name recognition and longstanding ties to Democratic Party officials across the nation. The Obama campaign was conceived as an insurgency against the Democratic Party Establishment, represented by the former President Clinton and his wife.

In South Carolina Mr Obama forswore the time-honoured approach of relying on endorsements from powerful politicians and preachers to tell poor blacks how to vote. Many black leaders were wary of offending the Clintons, whom they have supported in the past. Instead, Mr Obama assembled a grassroots organisation with out-of-state community organisers and volunteers, following the advice of his white strategist, Steve Hildebrand, to bypass established black politicos in the state.

His effort earned high praise for winning a crushing four-fifths of the black vote as well as a majority of whites aged under 30. Carol Fowler, the South Carolina Democratic Party chairwoman, calls Mr Obama’s organisation “the best I have ever seen”.

As the contest goes nationwide on Super Tuesday, however, that strategy is being put to the test.

“None of the candidates is going to be able to put on the kind of grassroots effort on voter turnout in the Super Tuesday states as they did in the early states, when they were working one state at a time,” said Alam Abramowitz, a politics professor at Emory University in Atlanta. “When you shift to 22 states, it’s a different ballgame. The question now as Obama shifts in the new states is wheher he is going to get a big enough lift out of his South Carolina win and endorsements like Ted Kennedy’s,” he said.

Mr Obama’s charismatic personality and eloquent speeches have attracted a small band of “internacionalistas” from around the world.

Mr Nicholson says that he has campaigned with one other British volunteer as well as a Norwegian. Among the volunteers at Mr Obama’s South Carolina victory rally was Constancia Romilly, the daughter of Jessica Mitford, the radical “red sheep” of the six legendary Mitford sisters. Ms Romilly’s father was Winston’s Churchill’s “red nephew” Esmond Romilly, who fought with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War.

Ms Romilly, who lives in New York, was attending the event with her son by James Foreman, the American civil rights activist, a founder of the Student Non-violent Organising Committee in the early 1960s. Her son, James, is a law professor at Georgetown University and had brought his students on the campaign trail.

“My aunt Debo, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, sent me a note saying she hopes we are successful with Obama,” Ms Romilly said. “It may be tongue-in-cheek.”

Mr Nicholson arrived in Concord, New Hampshire, after being invited to join the campaign. Campaigns are now so desperate for manpower that they often overlook the stray non-American. “I am allowed to volunteer,” Mr Nicholson said. “I am not allowed to be paid.”

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