Downtown Columbia is home to one of 23 new regional campaign offices in Missouri, more than twice as many as Republican candidate John McCain.

Over the next week, Barack Obama's campaign will be opening offices all across Missouri.

"The purpose of that office is to base the operation out of, will be contacting voters there, will be during voter's registration's rise in that office," said executive director of the Democratic party Mark Buhrmester. "That's gonna be base of our operation. Everything that will Obama campaign does in Mid-Missouri will be based on that office."

Earlier this month, the campaign announced it would have 150 paid staff in Missouri. And that staff says it has a simple goal:

"I hope that's going to educate many people in Columbia especially in downtown, not just young people, but especially young people to go out and vote and they will come out large number of vote for Obama," MU student Shpend Ibraimi.

The Obama campaign also has plans for offices in such cities as Hannibal, Warrenton, Poplar Bluff, Bolivar, West Plains, Farmington, Marshfield, Rolla, Union and Louisiana. According to a campaign representative, the full list will be complete in the next few days.

As of July 9th, Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign reported having 12 to 14 full-time staff in 10 offices around Missouri. KOMU tried to contact the McCain campaign about plans for the fall, but, campaign officials have not returned messages.