January 05, 2008	Saturday	Zilhaj 25, 1428

CONCORD (New Hampshire): Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee headed to New Hampshire on Friday, vowing to defend hard fought early wins in the 2008 US presidential season’s first key race against rivals determined to upstage them.

The task for the victors in Iowa’s caucuses on Thursday night will not be easy. The New Hampshire primary on Tuesday is traditionally where the Democrat who wins Iowa gets ratified and where the Republican winner gets stung.

Obama, a US senator seeking to become the first black US president, knocked expected front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton to third place in Iowa where wins for candidates often translate into valuable momentum in ultimately securing their party’s nomination in the US general election.

The results also predictably tightened the Democratic field. Sens Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd dropped out shortly after the outcome was clear Thursday night. John Edwards mounted an energetic, populist campaign only to see himself repeat his 2004 second place finish in the state. He vowed to continue, but he trails Obama and Clinton in polls and in money.

Huckabee, a Baptist preacher turned politician, rode a wave of support from evangelical and born-again Christians to victory in Iowa, where wins for candidates often translate into valuable momentum in ultimately securing their party’s nomination in the US general election.

The former Arkansas governor handily defeated Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who is seeking to become the US’s first Mormon president, despite being outspent by tens of millions of dollars. Just months ago, Huckabee was virtually unknown outside Arkansas, where he had served as governor.

“I think it’ll be a little bold to say, ‘Oh, we’re going to win New Hampshire,’” Huckabee told reporters on Friday as he flew from Iowa to New Hampshire. “We’re probably not, although crazier things could happen. In the short period of time, the likelihood is that McCain will win. He’s got a longstanding organisation there, and it makes sense.”

The Iowa caucuses — a series of simultaneous evening meetings held in nearly 1,800 precincts across the state — began a crucial five-week stretch, culminating on Feb 5, when more than 20 states hold primaries. The parties do not formally select their candidates until their presidential nominating conventions in August and September, though the nominees will likely be determined well before then.

As tight as the race in Iowa was, it will be no easier in New Hampshire, which hosts the first presidential primary on Tuesday.

Obama is neck and neck in polls there with Clinton who, despite her third place finish in Iowa, has the resources to confront him head on. Will Obama, like Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, use his Iowa victory to catapult himself to victory in New Hampshire? Or will Clinton manufacture a turnaround like her husband did in 1992?

Huckabee faces even bigger questions. He has hardly campaigned in New Hampshire where a Republican contest is already in a dead heat between Romney and John McCain. He enters the state with little money and little time to mount an adequate come-from-behind surge.

In their victory speeches earlier, Obama and Huckabee struck similar cords and distinguished themselves from their respective fields — portraying themselves as unifiers and change agents who did not view the world in simply Republican and Democratic hues.

“You said the time has come to move beyond the bitterness and pettiness and anger that’s consumed Washington,” Obama told his supporters. “To end the political strategy that’s been all about division, and instead make it about addition. To build a coalition for change that stretches through red states and blue states. Because that’s how we’ll win in November, and that’s how we’ll finally meet the challenges that we face as a nation.”

Huckabee, sounding some of the same economic populist themes that Democrats had often heard from Edwards, said Americans were eager for change.

“But what they want is a change that starts with a challenge to those of us who were given this sacred trust of office so that we recognise that what our challenge is to bring this country back together, to make Americans, once again, more proud to be Americans than just to be Democrats or Republicans,” he said. “To be more concerned about being going up instead of just going to the left or to the right.”

Huckabee’s victory in Iowa served to keep the Republicans’ race wide open. He beat Romney by nearly 9 percentage points, a setback for the former Massachusetts governor who now faces a reinvigorated McCain. Fred Thompson was looking beyond New Hampshire to South Carolina. And Rudy Giuliani, fading in New Hampshire, was counting on Florida and big state contests on Feb 5.

Romney reached into the sports metaphor closet on Friday as he sought to give perspective to the loss in Iowa.

“This is still a nice, long process here,” he told about 150 campaign workers.

“We’ve had, if you will, the first inning of a game that has, let’s say, 50 innings in it.”

He promised to rebound by selling voters on his outsider image and pledge to replace partisan bickering in Washington with government productivity.

An unpredictable factor in New Hampshire could be Republican Ron Paul, an anti-war congressman with libertarian views whose legions of volunteers have fanned out across the state waving placards and knocking on doors in support of their dark horse candidate. Paul has raised a surprising amount of money, further complicating the political calculations in the state.

Money, a defining measure of candidate strength throughout 2007, turned out to be not so determinative in Iowa.

Romney, a multimillionaire who pumped more than $17 million of his own money into the campaign by September, spent about $7 million on ads in Iowa to Huckabee’s $1.4 million.

Likewise, Edwards remained in the mix with Obama and Clinton even though they broke all fundraising records last year. Obama spent $9 million in television ads in Iowa, Clinton spent $7 million and Edwards spent only $3 million.

Romney’s and Clinton’s inability to win was also a blow to much of the Democratic and Republican party establishment that had lined up behind both candidates.

Still, money could be a factor ahead. Romney could tap his wealth again to carry him through New Hampshire and other contests. And with Obama and Clinton at the top, the Democratic contest appears to be dominated by two financial titans.

Polls of Iowa voters as they entered the caucuses showed that Obama outpolled Clinton among women, and benefited from a surge in first-time caucus-goers and young voters in what was a record Democratic turnout. Similar enthusiasm in New Hampshire could again favour Obama.

Huckabee rode to victory on the strength of born-again or evangelical Christians, who comprised six in 10 Republican caucus-goers. But New Hampshire’s Republican electorate is less overtly religious and more fiscally conservative. Even so, Huckabee has a penchant for retail politics and offers a message that is not singularly religious in tone.

“The thing you can say about Mike Huckabee is that he has a very different coalition,” said Charlie Arlinghaus, a longtime New Hampshire Republican strategist and senior adviser to Thompson. “Giuliani’s support comes from moderates and Romney’s from conservatives. But Huckabee crosses a lot of lines — socially conservative and economically populist. That’s why he was underestimated.”—AP