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Democrats: Clinton surprises Obama in N.H.

Retooled campaign, loyal voters give Clinton solid boost

August 18, 2009 at 10:22PM

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., reacts at her Democratic primary election night victory rally in Manchester, N.H., Tuesday. (Stan Schmidt — Associated Press/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

MANCHESTER, N.H. - By pulling a surprise win in the New Hampshire primary, Hillary Clinton resurrected her White House hopes Tuesday in the state she was counting on as her firewall.

Clinton, overcoming late polls that showed her well behind Barack Obama, pledged to take what she learned in New Hampshire to the rest of the country.

"I come tonight with a very, very full heart," she told ecstatic supporters. "I listened to you and in the process, I found my own voice. ... I felt like we all spoke from our hearts."

But Clinton has little time if she wants to shake up her campaign and craft a more effective message to maintain momentum in what is shaping up to be a long and difficult struggle for the Democratic nomination.

Voters in New Hampshire were more receptive to her message of experience and competence, according to exit polls. Just five days earlier, Iowans resoundingly endorsed Obama's inspirational call for change.

Clinton's loss in Iowa was magnified because she had long been seen as the favorite to win the nomination, and because her supporters cultivated an aura of inevitability around her candidacy. After Iowa, the tide of enthusiasm for Obama seemed to be rolling into New Hampshire, and the last polls before the primary had suggested he would beat her by a double-digit margin.

So the close contest in New Hampshire could leave the two candidates on more equal footing headed into Nevada, South Carolina and the momentous 22-state contest on Feb. 5.

Early explanations of Clinton's better-than-expected results credited, first, the get-out-the-vote efforts of her top-notch state operation. And second, Clinton's show of emotion on the trail Monday, when she teared up in response to a question about how she handles the strain of the campaign, and she talked passionately about her desire to help the country.

It was female voters who breathed new life into her campaign.

Weekend polling indicated Clinton and Obama were running about even among women, but the former First Lady went on to best Obama among women by 13 percentage points. Women also voted in much larger numbers than men.

Rising from the ashes

Political analysts said Tuesday that if any campaign could rise from a poor showing in early states, it was hers, given the Clinton machine's long record of rising from the ashes of political defeat.

"The fact she's still running even in national polls is striking to me," said Mark Mellman, a top Democratic strategist unaffiliated with any of the current campaigns. "She does have people who like her, she does have money, she does have institutional support."

Her campaign appears to be focusing now on the super primary on Feb. 5, which includes delegate-rich California and New York, the state that has elected her twice to the U.S. Senate.

All signs also point to a major staff shake-up. National campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said new top-level advisers will join up. Rumors swirled that some of former President Bill Clinton's longtime loyalists, such as James Carville and Paul Begala, would be brought in, though Begala denied it.

With a little time to breathe before the Michigan primary Tuesday and the Nevada caucuses on Jan. 19, Clinton is expected to return to New York for a short rest.

Show of emotion was key

Political analysts speculated that Clinton's show of emotion may prove to have been an extraordinary help. All through her 15 years on the national stage, Clinton has struggled with perceptions of her as cold, ambitious and calculating. And she did not seem to have overcome that problem until Monday.

But the crowd of undecided voters in a Portsmouth cafe where her eyes filled with tears seemed moved.

The professionalism of Clinton's New Hampshire operation also received credit Tuesday. In the days before the primary, more than 6,000 volunteers knocked on tens of thousands of doors. Nearly 300 drivers were deployed to help voters reach the polls.

Still, there are signs of trouble ahead.

New Hampshire was particularly friendly territory because the New York senator had most of the state's political establishment in her corner.

Now, Clinton doesn't have any easy turf coming up. The most powerful union in Nevada is expected to endorse Obama as soon as today, giving him a key boost. The next contest after that will be South Carolina on Jan. 26, where the large black population is ripe for Obama.

Some political analysts said Clinton and her advisers should have responded more nimbly to polls months ago showing that change was a popular theme among Democrats. They also fault the campaign for giving off an air of entitlement and for swapping themes and slogans time and again.

"I think the campaign strategy of inevitability gave a false sense of security, and masked the fact that she didn't have a message that was clear and consistent," said Linda L. Fowler, a political scientist at Dartmouth College.

"They went from 'tough as a rhinoceros' to 'kinder-gentler' to 'change agent.' People were really confused," Fowler said.

A crowd cheers as they watch election returns for Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton at the campaign headquarters in Manchester, N.H. (Elliott Polk (Clickability Client Services) — Getty/AFFP/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., acknowledged supporters’ cheers and received a hug from his wife, Michelle, Tuesday night upon arriving at his election night presidential primary rally at South Nashua High School in Nashua, N.H. (Associated Press/The Minnesota Star Tribune)