Clinton, Obama wage fierce New Hampshire battle
MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (AFP) - Democrat Hillary Clinton Sunday warned Barack Obama's soaring oratory masked a lack of achievement, but new polls showed him threatening to deal a second painful blow to her White House hopes.
"There is a big difference between talking and acting, between promising and delivering," Senator Clinton, who would make history by becoming the first woman president, told a rally of canvassers.
Democrats must "nominate and elect a doer, not a talker" she later told a several thousand strong crowd crammed into a school gymnasium, in one of her sharpest jabs at Obama yet, warning they must "separate rhetoric from reality."
The charismatic Illinois senator however renewed the clarion calls for change that tapped new seams of votes in Iowa last week, as he tries to paint Clinton as a symptom not a cure for fractured US political life. "A few days ago, I stood up and said it was time for change in America. In two days' time, it will be your time to stand up, you will have a chance to change America," Obama told his own huge crowd.
On the heels of his stunning win in Iowa, a McClatchy-MSNBC poll showed Obama with the support of 33 percent of New Hampshire Democratic voters, against 31 percent for Clinton.
Another poll, by the Concord Monitor newspaper, had Obama with a slender one-point lead over Clinton, 34 to 33 percent, and had him leading among independent and female voters.
He further enhanced his likely appeal to uncommitted voters, who play a key role in fiercely independent New Hampshire, by snapping up the endorsement of former presidential candidate, senator and basketball star Bill Bradley. "(Obama's) movement for change could create a new era of American politics -- truly a new American story," Bradley, who lost the 2000 Democratic nomination to Al Gore, said.
In the face of the new polls, the former first lady went door to door Sunday to drum up votes, and vied to harness Obama's narrative that change is coming to America in November's election, but stressed that experience also counts.
"We have got to pick a president that will be ready on day one to deliver results."
Clinton on Saturday had used a tense televised debate to argue that her party rival was inconsistent, inexperienced, and more fond of high-flown rhetoric than executing change.
But her attacks on Obama's comparative inexperience fell flat in Thursday's Iowa caucuses, where the Illinois senator hoping to be America's first black president won a surprisingly comfortable victory over John Edwards and Clinton.
Obama, stature enhanced by his Iowa triumph, avoided serious gaffes in Saturday's debate, appeared unruffled by Clinton's attacks, and smoothly deflected them with his own political message of hope.
On the Republican side, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney scored a morale-boosting victory in Saturday's Wyoming nominating caucus, winning eight of the 12 delegates up for grabs in the sparsely populated state.
Despite his own vast personal wealth and a vaunted organization in Iowa, Romney went down to defeat on Thursday to Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and Baptist preacher.
Republicans were due to hold another televised debate on Sunday, after Romney Saturday came under a fierce barrage from hopefuls including Huckabee and Senator John McCain, who leads in most New Hampshire polls.
No love is lost between the Republicans, with Romney under withering fire for running as a comparatively liberal Republican in Massachusetts before switching positions on abortion, gay rights and immigration.
"He has changed his position on almost every major issue, that is a fact," McCain told NBC on Sunday.
"But that doesn't mean that he isn't a good person. I want to debate this campaign on issues, not on personalities," he said, as his and Romney's campaigns traded blistering attack ads in New Hampshire.
By Stephen Collinson, AFP, January 6, 2008
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