RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Hillary in 2008

Clinton Regains Momentum With New Hampshire Upset
By Catherine Dodge
Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Hillary Clinton's comeback victory over Barack Obama in the New Hampshire primary revives her campaign and sets up what will probably be an extended battle for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Clinton's win came just five days after her stunning third- place finish in Iowa. The outcome in New Hampshire confounded polls that had showed the Illinois senator winning big and halts the momentum he was building. Now, the Democratic field, like the Republican one, has no clear leader heading into more than two-dozen contests over the next month.

``Now we are in a very close contest,'' Obama said on NBC's Today Show. ``That will probably go all the way through Feb. 5'' when more than 20 states hold primaries ``as the voters lift the hood, kick the tires'' to see ``who is going to fight for their families.''

Asked about the attacks on his record by Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, Obama told MSNBC: ``We have to make sure we take it to them just like they take it to us.''

Arizona Senator John McCain, 71, won the Republican primary, dealing a setback to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, 60, and further clouding that contest. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, 52, who won the Iowa caucus, finished third in New Hampshire.

Not Discouraged

Clinton said she wasn't discouraged by polls showing her trailing Obama in the last few days by as many as 13 percentage points. ``I didn't believe it, I felt really good'' because ``voters were hearing me, they were listening. They were believing I could do what I said I will do,'' she told Fox News.

Clinton received 39 percent of the vote to 36 percent for Obama with 99 percent of precincts reporting, according to a tally by the Associated Press.

Clinton's win was reminiscent of the surge in the same state by her husband in 1992 that saved his candidacy. Bill Clinton finished second, dubbing himself the ``Comeback Kid'' because he had rebounded in the race after allegations of an extramarital affair and evading the draft during the Vietnam War.

It's ``Comeback Kid, version two,'' said Dean Spiliotes, an independent political analyst in New Hampshire. The upset gives ``people pause about Obama's viability'' and raises issues that have dogged him in the past about his experience and ``whether he's really ready,'' he said.

Two-Person Race

It's now a ``real two-person race, with a slight edge to Clinton,'' said John Fortier, a political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. ``New Hampshire shows that Clinton can win solidly among Democrats, and when we go forward to states that do not allow independents in their primaries, Clinton will be strong.''
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