Just five days after his Iowa triumph spun momentum into his White House drive, Obama enjoyed a solid lead in New Hampshire and for the first time shattered Hillary Clinton’s advantage among Democratic voters nationally, polls showed.
The former first lady showed up outside a polling station at a school in Nashua and waded into a large mob of excited school kids, clasping hands, then moved on to supporters, several of whom seemed close to tears as they gripped her in tight bear hugs.
Asked how she was feeling, Clinton said, “really good,” a day after she choked back tears on the campaign trail in a rare emotional display, as the strain of her damaged White House bid showed through.
Republican John McCain meanwhile looked set to lock in his advantage over rival Mitt Romney, who needs a strong showing after coming in a grim second last week in the Iowa caucuses, which launched this year’s White House race.
The tiny resort village of Dixville Notch began voting in the minutes after midnight (0500 GMT), with all 17 of its registered voters casting ballots, in keeping with an eccentric tradition.
Results written on a board showed Obama with seven votes; former senator with John Edwards with two; and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson one, on the Democratic side.
McCain was the Republican victor with four votes, while Romney took two and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, one.
There were no votes for Clinton or Iowa Republican victor Mike Huckabee, who has vaulted to pole position among Republicans nationally in the latest polls.
Clinton made the rounds of morning news shows, brushing aside the possibility that her campaign could suffer a fatal blow with a poor showing in New Hampshire and stressing that her record was the strongest.
“You know, it is important when you ask Senator Obama and Senator Edwards what are their major accomplishments, that they really didn’t have a lot to say,” Clinton told CBS.
Obama, who gave no network television interviews on Tuesday, wrapped up his New Hampshire campaign with a raucous rally in Concord late Monday, soaring to rhetorical heights in a bid to rally turnout.
“Starting tomorrow, we’re going to make history, we’re going to repair the nation, we’re going to repair the world!” he cried in a 45-minute speech frequently drowned out by the roars of the crowd.
In a tactic that has begun to draw scorn from Clinton, Obama invoked a pantheon of American political icons, from the founding fathers to the pioneers of the American civil rights movement.
Clinton has accused Obama of inflating a thin resume by comparing himself to Democratic icon John F. Kennedy, and civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr.
The strain of the Obama juggernaut appeared to be taking its toll after Clinton’s eyes welled up on Monday when asked how she manages to keep going every day.
“This is very personal for me. It is not just political.
I see what’s happening. We have to reverse it,” she said, her voice quavering, after talking with voters in a coffee shop.
Highlighting the importance of a one-two Iowa and New Hampshire punch, the political journal Congressional Quarterly recalled that “in competitive races over the past three and a half decades, every candidate who won both ... went on to win this party’s nomination.”
New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner said last week he expects a record turnout of half a million voters, with numbers swelled by enthusiastic Democrats delighted with their slate of candidates.
The turnout was likely to include more than 120,000 independent voters, who most analysts say will vote in the Democratic primary, forming a major part of Obama’s support base.
The latest polls showed Obama as the favourite going into Tuesday’s nomination, after he beat Clinton into third place in Iowa after John Edwards.
And a national poll by USA Today/Gallup said that Obama and Clinton each drew 33 per cent support from Democrats, compared to an 18-point lead for the former first lady in mid-December, well before Obama’s win in Iowa.
New Hampshire’s primary meanwhile did not look set to clarify fortunes among the crowded Republican field.
McCain, a Vietnam war veteran and former prisoner of war who in a debate Sunday said he knew how to get Osama bin Laden and vowed to do so if elected, is seen as the favourite here.
National front-runner Huckabee trails in third and Giuliani is still waiting in the wings to attack in subsequent primaries in more populous states.
Former Massachusetts governor Romney is running second to McCain in New Hampshire, a state all the more important following his loss to Huckabee in Iowa.—AFP