By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : Iowa victor Barack Obama has shot far ahead of Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, according to new polls before Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.
The latest polls showed the former first lady of the US 5 to 13 points behind Obama, seeking to be the nation’s first black president, with the CNN/WMUR poll suggesting that 39 percent of likely New Hampshire Democratic primary voters back Obama – ten points ahead of Clinton’s 29 percent.
Obama is up six points and Clinton down four points from the channel’s earlier survey that showed them level at 33 percent. John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee at 16 percent in the new survey, was also down four points from Saturday.
The new polls came as a huge setback to Hillary Clinton’s hopes of regaining her frontrunner status like her husband Bill Clinton did back in 1992 when he garnered a measly three percent in Iowa then came second with 25 percent in New Hampshire before going on to win the party nomination and the presidency.
Obama emerged as the clear winner of the Iowa’s Democratic caucuses Thursday night, garnering 38 percent of the vote. Edwards was second with 30 percent, and Clinton came in third at 29 percent. New Mexico governor Bill Richardson rounded out the top four with two percent of the delegate vote.
“The poll strongly suggests an Obama surge in New Hampshire. Obama’s gaining about three points a day, at the expense of both Clinton and Edwards. Obama’ s lead has now hit double digits (10 points) going into the home stretch. It’s ‘the Big Mo’!” said CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider.
“The Iowa caucus results have convinced growing numbers of Granite State (New Hampshire) voters that Obama can really go all the way. In December 45 percent thought Clinton had the best chance of beating the Republican nominee.
“But in Saturday’s poll, Clinton and Obama were tied on that measure and now Obama has a 42 percent to 31 percent edge over Clinton on delectability,” said CNN polling director Keating Holland.
The Iowa victory also propelled Obama to the cover of Newsweek with the magazine describing his rise in superlative terms in its cover story: “Inside Obama’s Dream Machine: An icon of hope, he won’t ‘kneecap’ his foes. But Obama knows what it takes, and how to win.”
Noting that the Iowa caucuses were portrayed by the pundits as a make-or-break test of a black candidate’s viability with white voters, and of his ability to stand up to Hillary Clinton, Newsweek said Obama attributes his quick political rise to that “respectful tone”, which he believes voters crave after so many ugly, dispiriting campaign seasons.
But along the way, he has had to resist continual pressure even from inside his own campaign to take a harder and harsher line against his rivals, Hillary Clinton in particular, it said.
Recounting one difficult episode, Obama told Newsweek that last summer when his campaign was stalling after a series of lacklustre debate performances, his staff pleaded with him to go after Clinton. Then, a sleazy anonymous oppo-research memo, sourced to the Obama campaign, started making the rounds among reporters.
It suggested Bill Clinton had profited from companies that outsourced jobs to India, while Hillary raked in donations from Indian-Americans. The memo was crudely titled “Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)” – journalistic shorthand to suggest she was the Democratic senator from Punjab not New York.
The Clinton campaign was justifiably angry, and seized on the episode as proof that Obama had abandoned his vaunted “politics of hope” and had offended Indian-Americans in the process. Obama was furious with his staff, Newsweek said.
“Some of my roommates in college were Indian and Pakistani,” he told the news magazine. “I had to call some of my best friends and explain that my campaign wasn’t engaged in xenophobia.”
Obama held a come-to-Jesus meeting with his senior aides at his Chicago headquarters and vented his anger. “If you’re even going close to the line, you better ask me first,” he recalled saying. “That was the most angry I’ve been in this campaign.”
Obama’s high-minded themes of hope and change – and not getting your hands dirty – can come off as earnest, even naive, in the world of hardball presidential politics. But Obama is also a streetwise Chicago politician who put together a campaign machine formidable enough to take on the Clintons and win, Newsweek said.
Meanwhile on the Republican side, senator John McCain remains the frontrunner in the battle for the party nomination with 32 percent of voters backing the Vietnam War veteran.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who came in second in Iowa, was running second with 26 percent in New Hampshire. Both candidates are down one point from Saturday’s poll.
The shake up on the Republican side is for third place. Mike Huckabee, the Republican winner of Iowa at 14 percent, now has slightly more support than former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, at 11 percent. In Saturday’s poll, Giuliani had 14 percent and Huckabee, a former Arkansas Governor and a Baptist preacher, had 11 percent.
“Huckabee has switched places with Rudy Giuliani. Huckabee’s got ‘the Little Mo’, coming out of Iowa,” says Schneider.