Just as it appeared her campaign was faltering, New Hampshire victory gives her major boost

Jan 09, 2008 04:30 AM

MANCHESTER, N.H. “ Hillary Clinton confounded the pollsters, pundits “ even her inner campaign circle “ by roaring back in the New Hampshire Democratic primary last night, narrowly defeating Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

“I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice,” she told delirious supporters here who chanted “Comeback Kid,” the name this state hung on her husband 16 years ago.

“Now, together, let’s give America the kind of comeback that New Hampshire has just given me.”

The tense Democratic battle between the two front-runners unfolded on a night when 71-year-old Arizona Senator John McCain rejuvenated a campaign given up for dead last summer by easily winning the Republican primary and vaulting back into contention for his party’s nomination.

With Clinton blunting the momentum that Obama had brought here with him from a convincing victory last week in Iowa, the race for the Democratic nomination now seems set for a long, intensive battle leading to Super Tuesday Feb. 5, when some 22 states will vote or hold caucuses.

But first a battle looms for Democrats in Nevada, then South Carolina, the first southern primary in which a majority of party voters could be African-Americans being wooed by a man seeking to become the first black president.

Clinton shared an embrace with daughter Chelsea with a beaming Bill Clinton at her side as she took the stage moments after Obama tried to rally his backers.

“We are in it for the long run,” she said.

“And that is because we are in it for the American people.”

The unexpected victory by the former first lady came a day after the stress of a potential second defeat boiled over in a small-town coffee shop, where she teared up and her voice cracked as she told an undecided voter how she held up on such a gruelling campaign.

Clinton took an early lead in returns and held that margin all evening long, winning by two percentage points.

“We always knew our climb would be steep,” Obama said.

But he delivered a rousing speech that held little hint of a setback here after he held a healthy lead in the polls.

“At this time, in this election, there is something happening in America,” he said.

“Change is what’s happening in America right now.”

He acknowledged the battle ahead “will be long … but no matter what lays ahead, nothing can stand in the way of millions of voices calling for change.”

Without mentioning Clinton, he told supporters that they had been warned of offering Americans “false hope.”

But in America, Obama said, “there has never been anything false about hope.”

He repeatedly told supporters that victory will still be theirs, punctuating his words with a call of “yes, we can.”

“Yes we can, yes we can, yes we can,” the crowd repeated.

The question today is simply – how did Clinton do it? And how did the pollsters get this race so wrong?

Clinton’s strategy here, opening herself up to questions and showing a more personal side had resonance here, and she also scored well with women.

Far more women voted than men, and Clinton won 45 per cent of their vote compared to 36 per cent for Obama.

Obama also was unable to turn out the young voters who rallied for him in Iowa last week and not as many independents voted for Obama as pollsters had predicted.

Clinton also won in Manchester, the blue collar Democratic bastion that supported Bill Clinton 16 years ago.

And then there was “The Moment” – the moist eyes and faltering, quavering voice at the coffee shop in Portsmouth that was derided by many critics as contrived, but appeared to strike a chord with working women in the room, and possibly beyond.

Three days ago Clinton was 15 points behind in this race and polls even yesterday showed her trailing Obama by double digits amid reports of a complete overhaul in campaign strategy and the imminent firing of senior, long-time campaign aides.

Coming on the heels of last week’s convincing victory in the Iowa Democratic caucuses, Obama had been expected to easily brush aside the Clinton machine here.

As the Republicans head to Michigan for a primary next Tuesday, Democrats have Nevada, where the party caucus is set for Jan. 19, next in their sights.

The populist message of former North Carolina senator John Edwards did not resonate here as it did in Iowa and he finished a distant third behind the two frontrunners.

New Mexico governor Bill Richardson finished a poor fourth and is said to be reassessing the wisdom of continuing in the race.

Turnout was expected to hit a record 500,000, according to New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardiner, and 150,000 of them considered themselves independents.

Of that total, 90,000 voted Democratic and 60,000 Republican, and it was the voter pool that was expected to decide both races.

Last night’s win was even more stunning because of the steady drumbeat of near-panic in the Clinton campaign that unfolded all day long before the first results were known.

James Carville and Paul Begala, the two legendary figures of the Bill Clinton 1992 victory, were reportedly approached by the Clinton campaign but denied they were primed to jump onboard.

There was also concern in the Clinton campaign that a wholesale shake-up would just feed the narrative of a desperate campaign in disarray. But at a stop to rally voters early in the day at a polling place, Clinton was already looking beyond the crucial Nevada and South Carolina votes later this month.

“I think the nominating process ends at midnight on Feb. 5,” she said.

“I look forward to campaigning across the country.”

Bill Clinton took dead aim at Obama in increasingly shrill terms.

He said the frontrunner had inflated his anti-war stance in 2002.

“Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I have ever seen,” he told a rally.

“You have to decide whether his skills and image are more important than her ability to produce these changes.”

And, in a curious last-minute gambit, he criticized New Hampshire officials for scheduling the primary so close to the Iowa caucus, arguing they had short-changed their voters by not giving them a proper campaign.

Although it sounds like a shutout in a football or baseball game, it isn’t. These are the results from the Dixville Notch, New Hampshire hamlet where Sen. Barack Obama took 7 of the 10 votes cast there. How many did Hillary get? You guessed right, zero.

The big question is, if Barack wins in New Hampshire will Hillary drop out of the campaign? She should.