The clip most circulated from Friday night’s post-Iowa caucus debate was the clip above of Hillary Clinton defending her record as an “agent of change” which is clearly the message Obama has had such success in communicating thus far. As Jake Tapper noted, she’s angry, with good reason. Nearly every recent poll out of New Hampshire shows Obama with a double-digit lead.
The Toronto Star reports on the scene at a Derry, NH Obama campaign stop: Inside, teenagers, mostly young girls, slouched over the security barricades, digital cameras dangling from their wrists, cellphones clutched in firm grips. When he finally arrived, more than 90 minutes late, adding to the excruciating wait of the long afternoon, flashbulbs popped from all directions and for a couple of moments Pinkerton Academy gym was awash in strobe lights like some cheesy ’80s disco.This is the wave Obama has ridden into New Hampshire, but it is a wave Hillary Clinton is mightily pushing back against, challenging voters to look beyond the rhetorical crescendos offered by the Illinois senator and probe beyond the words.”
CNN-WMUR poll: Obama 39, Clinton 29, Edwards 16
ARG poll: Obama 39, Clinton 28, Edwards 22
Rasmussen: Obama 39, Clinton 27, Edwards 18
USA Today/Gallup: Obama 41, Clinton 28, Edwards 19
Bill Clinton told MTV news that Hillary underestimated the youth vote in Iowa: “I think historically young people have not voted in the Iowa caucus because they are from other states. This time we had a lot of students who did come back and I think, frankly, thousands and thousands of them came back from Illinois to support Senator Obama, and they had a very aggressive outreach. And we haven’t made that mistake here; we’ve reached out to young people here and I think we just have to keep trying.”
On the Republican side, McCain is coming on strong: “Wide open and intense, the race for the Republican nomination has gotten ever tighter ahead of Tuesday’s voting. A new USA Today/Gallup poll showed the Republican race tied in New Hampshire. McCain had the support of 34 percent of likely voters, up from 27 percent in mid-December. Romney was at 30 percent, down from 34 percent, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee – the Iowa caucus winner – was third at 13 percent. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had 8 percent, while former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson was in the low single digits. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas – who had 8 percent – was excluded from the debate by the sponsor, Fox News Channel, and the New Hampshire Republican Party dropped out of the forum to protest the exclusion.”
