    
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 6288
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 28, 2007 - 09:23 am: | 
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Obama hammers Clinton as polls show tight race
DES MOINES, Iowa (AFP) — Barack Obama rejected rival Hillary Clinton's vow to forge change Thursday, as polls showed a tight Democratic White House race in Iowa, a week before the state's leadoff nominating clash.
In a soaring new speech, the Democratic senator sharpened his attacks on the former first lady, as the foes criss-crossed the ice-bound midwestern state in a tussle for votes before next Thursday's curtain-raising party caucuses.
The assassination of Pakistan's ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto meanwhile cast a tragic shadow over the campaign trail, and sparked fresh questions about which candidate was most qualified to wage the "war on terror."
"You can't at once argue that you are the master of a broken system in Washington and offer yourself as the person to change it," Obama said in a stump speech clearly targeting Clinton.
"You can't fall behind conventional thinking on issues as profound as war and offer yourself as the leader who is best prepared to chart a new and better course for America," he said in Des Moines.
Clinton had Wednesday broken a fragile Christmas truce between the rivals, by jabbing at Obama's "politics of hope" rhetoric, arguing that only a candidate steeped in Washington could wage a battle to change it.
"I am not coming to you with promises about what I think I can do or hopes that together we can achieve some of these ends ... but with a track record and an understanding of how difficult the process is," Clinton said.
Change is the key theme of the 2008 election for Democrats, desperate to recapture the White House after eight years of President George W. Bush, and national security, social and economic policies they abhor.
Clinton appears to have stabilized her campaign after a volley of stumbles before the Christmas holiday, but faces a fierce fight with Obama, and former party 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards in Iowa.
An new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll showed Clinton leading Edwards by 31 to 25 percent among likely Iowa caucus goers with Obama on 22 percent.
Among all Iowa Democrats, Clinton was just 29 to 26 up on Obama with Edwards on 25 percent. The polls had a four percentage point margin of error.
Among likely voters in New Hampshire, which holds its primary on January 8, Obama led with 32 percent ahead of Clinton on 30 percent.
On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee, the ordained Baptist preacher who shot into the lead in Iowa after mobilizing the crucial evangelical Christian bloc, returned to the state.
"I love this country, and I love it more than I love the Republican Party, the Republican Party needs to be changed," Huckabee said at a rally of several thousand supporters.
"If we don't start solving real problems ... no longer will it matter whether we are left or right. This country should not be about what party we belong to, it ought to be about what future we are going to have."
Huckabee's rival Mitt Romney, who led in the polls for months in the key state, blitzed the airwaves with advertising, knowing he probably needs wins in both Iowa and New Hampshire to have a viable path to the nomination.
Four of the Republican candidates -- Huckabee, Romney, Rudolph Giuliani and Senator John McCain -- remain so close in the earliest states to vote that they cannot be counted out.
Giuliani, the national frontrunner among Republicans, had taken the high-risk strategy of largely bypassing Iowa and New Hampshire to focus on Florida, which votes on January 29, and then other big states such as California and New York which vote on February 5.
Bhutto's murder meanwhile sent shockwaves through the race, and sparked a new round of questions about leadership credentials, and wary political maneuvering among top contenders.
McCain said the killing "underscores yet again the grave dangers we face in the world today."
Clinton and Obama both released statements bemoaning the killing, while Giuliani, running hard on low tolerance for Islamic radicalism, warned it showed the terrible threat from global terror.
"Her death is a reminder that terrorism anywhere -- whether in New York, London, Tel Aviv or Rawalpindi -- is an enemy of freedom."
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hLmjYdrQuKWW949q8XFXRSWsv2Jw
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