Obama-mania in New Hampshire as new poll shocks Clinton camp By David Usborne in Milford, New Hampshire
Published: 06 January 2008
Senator Barack Obama has been catapaulted by his Iowa victory into a sensational lead over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, just three days before the state's primary on Tuesday. The national pollster, Rasmussen Reports, which had Mr Obama trailing Mrs Clinton by three points just a few weeks ago, now gives him a lead of 10 per cent.
The Republican poll has Senator John McCain improving his position against Mitt Romney and now holding a five-point lead.
A foretaste of the way the wind is blowing here for the Clinton camp came on Friday night. Just over 3,000 activists of the New Hampshire Democratic Party gathered in an indoor sports hall in the city of Milford to listen to their candidates for the presidential nomination. Not the sort of folk to rush the stage or indulge in boos.
For months, Mrs Clinton has led polls here and has seemed unassailable. Yet, anyone attending the party's "100 Club" dinner here will surely know she faces a possible mincing on Tuesday thanks to one man.
"All Fired Up! Ready to Go!" Barack Obama, the victor among Democrats in Iowa, was the last scheduled speaker, and this was the chant that erupted even before he reached the stage. A security announcement followed: please take your seats! As if. And when the Senator from Illinois finally did step to the microphone, he struggled to make himself heard, such was the explosion of enthusiasm.
This was not some campus affair attended by mad-for-Barack students. (And they are legion.) We are talking about middle-aged white folks and the elite of the state's Democrat Party waving their signs and yelling a decidedly non-Anglo-Saxon name. O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA! And this in New Hampshire, the last state to honour Martin Luther King Day in January as an official holiday. .....(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3312828.ece