Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were scheduled to clash face-to-face late yesterday for the first time since he won the first White House nominating contest and threw her campaign into turmoil.
Three days before the second leg of the presidential selection marathon in New Hampshire, the rivals were to trade shots as surviving Democratic and Republican hopefuls take part in unusual back-to-back televised debates.
Obama, triumphant in the Iowa caucuses on Thursday, would try to avoid mistakes while the former first lady was desperate to stall his momentum and hopes to use New Hampshire's primary on Tuesday as a firewall.
PHOTO: EPA
In the Republican debate, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney would look to hit back at ordained Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee, who pulled off a stunning triumph in Iowa, while surging John McCain would also hope to shine.
Clinton and Obama both flew into New Hampshire in the early hours of Friday and laid out retooled battle strategies for the northeastern state, where campaigning is typically less genteel than in rural midwestern Iowa.
Obama electrified a crowd of more than 3,000 Democratic activists, injecting even more vitality than usual into his always stirring stump speech, portraying the primary as a moment of history which could send him to the White House.
"In four days, you can do what Iowa did last night," Obama told activists, and in a new riff to the speech suggested he could unite Democrats, independents and some Republican voters across the nation.
"You, the people of New Hampshire, can build the coalition that we have not seen in a generation," he said, implicitly contrasting his appeal with what critics say is Clinton's divisive image.
The former first lady meanwhile tried to steady a campaign staggering from its slump in Iowa, seeking to draw sharp contrast between her 35 years in public life and what she says is freshman Senator Obama's inexperience.
"There cannot be false hopes, we have to pick a president who is ready on day one," Clinton said, repeatedly billing herself as an agent of change, at the same Democratic dinner, where she was booed by some Obama backers.
"There are two big questions for voters in New Hampshire. One, is who will be the best president on day one? Second, is who can we nominate that will go the distance against the Republicans?" Clinton said.
The former first lady, on her quest to be the first woman US president, seeks the kind of boost in New Hampshire that revived her husband and former US president Bill Clinton's White House dreams in 1992 and earned him the nickname the "Comeback Kid."
But time is short, as the compressed political calendar has reduced the time between the Iowa and New Hampshire contests to just four days.
"It is a short period of time, but it is enough time -- time for people to say, `wait a minute,'" Clinton said.
But the size of her task was reflected in entry polls taken before Iowa's caucuses, showing Obama beat her among women, union workers and those wanting change.
An average of New Hampshire polls by RealClearPolitics had Clinton leading with 34 percent to Obama's 27 percent, with John Edwards, who narrowly beat Clinton for second place in Iowa, on 18 percent.
In the Republican version of the Iowa caucuses, Huckabee drubbed Romney by 34 percent to 25 percent, capturing the votes of the "Christian Right" benefiting, like Obama, from a populist wave of anger at Washington politics.
But RealClearPolitics poll averages had Vietnam war veteran John McCain leading the Republican field in New Hampshire at 31.3 percent, with former Massachusetts governor Romney at 28.8 percent, ex-New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani at 10 percent and Huckabee trailing at 9.5 percent.
McCain earned a virtual tie for third place in Iowa considering he did very little campaigning there and he is expected to do well in New Hampshire, which he won in 2000 before falling to Bush.
The Clinton camp has argued New Hampshire will be a more favorable test for her chances, as a straight primary election, rather than the quirky horsetrading of the caucuses, which despite record breaking numbers on Thursday, have a comparatively low turnout.
The Democratic debate will feature Clinton, Obama, Edwards and former US ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson.
The Republican encounter groups Romney, McCain, Huckabee, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, congressman Ron Paul and former senator and screen star Fred Thompson.
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