Barack Obama, flush from his stunning victory in the Iowa caucuses, rolled into to New Hampshire Friday charged up for the second leg in his fight to be America's first black president.
The young Illinois senator, with only two years of experience in Congress, decisively defeated Hillary Clinton in Thursday's nominating contest in Iowa, winning the backing of 38 percent of Democratic Iowa delegates.
"In four days' time we can choose to send a message that resonates all across the country," Obama said after rushing to New Hampshire for Tuesday's first primary votes of the 2008 White House race.
A message that "finally allows us to deal with critical issues like health care and our schools and climate change and energy policy that breaks the grip of our dependence on foreign oil," he said.
Without directly naming the former first lady, beaten into third place behind rival John Edwards, Obama again attacked Clinton as a tired symbol of the establishment who was betting on getting "the same old folks to do the same old things, play the same Washington game over and over again."
"That is a gamble we cannot afford. That is a risk we cannot take. It is time to turn the page. It is time to stand up. It is time for us to create the kind of America we can believe in again," he said.
With back-to-back rallies in New Hampshire, Obama, 46, hopes to turn his victory in Iowa and his message of hope and cleansing into a national surge ahead of the November 4 vote to succeed President George W. Bush.
Clinton, 60, was also in fighting mood, seeking the kind of boost in New Hampshire that revived husband Bill Clinton's White House dreams in 1992, and led him to dub himself the "Comeback Kid."
With a narrow lead in polls here that may not survive the "bounce" expected by Obama's camp after Iowa, Clinton must build a firewall before Tuesday's primary to contain her rival.
"It is a short period of time, but it is enough time -- time for people to say, 'wait a minute,'" Clinton said, developing her theme that Obama is too inexperienced to be president.
Shellshocked Clinton aides insisted the New York senator, on her own quest to become America's first woman president, would bounce back in the state-by-state primary bouts.
"This is one of 27 contests," Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe told reporters. "Hillary Clinton will be the nominee."
The outlines of a retooled Clinton strategy -- apparently thrashed out during an overnight flight from Iowa to New Hampshire -- were evident: never give up; appeal to young voters won over in droves by Obama in Iowa; play up his inexperience; warn he would be consumed by a Republican firestorm in a general election; and focus on economic woes.
An average of New Hampshire polls by RealClearPolitics had Clinton leading with 34 percent to Obama's 27 percent and Edwards' 18.
On the Republican side, conservative Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee, who pulled off a major upset to defeat Mitt Romney in Iowa, could find it hard to repeat that triumph in more liberal New Hampshire.
Huckabee drubbed Romney in Iowa by 34 percent to 25 percent, capturing the votes of the "Christian Right" benefiting, like Obama, from a populist wave of anger at Washington politics.
But RealClearPolitics poll averages had Vietnam war veteran John McCain leading the Republican field in New Hampshire at 31.3 percent, with former Massachusetts governor Romney at 28.8 percent, ex-New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani at 10 and Huckabee trailing at 9.5.
McCain earned a virtual tie for third place in Iowa considering he did very little campaigning there, and he is expected to do well in New Hampshire, which he won in 2000 before falling to Bush.
Iowa took some early casualties however, with Democratic senators Christopher Dodd and Joseph Biden both dropping out of the race after their poor showings.
And Thursday's results further splintered the Republican field, with other leading candidates like Giuliani lying in wait in bigger states still to hold primary battles leading up to February 5, when more than 20 states will vote.
Meanwhile, the White House denied the Iowa caucus reflected unhappiness at Bush's leadership, when asked if the result was a test of where the US public stands on Bush.
"No, not at all," said spokesman Tony Fratto. "I think he thinks it's more -- it's a good test for anyone who will eventually end up in this job. And it's exciting for Americans to pay attention to it. He is."
Copyright © 2008 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
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