Clinton given boost before first caucus
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Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, received a weekend boost in the run-up to the Iowa caucus, the first contest of the primary season, when the state’s largest newspaper endorsed her candidacy.
The Des Moines Register said Mrs Clinton was the most tried and tested of the would-be Democratic nominees. “Every stage of her life has prepared her for the presidency,” it said.
The backing is a welcome fillip for the New York senator, who is locked in an increasingly acrimonious three-way struggle to win Iowa with Barack Obama and John Edwards, and has seen her once-commanding lead in national polls erode.
However, the Boston Globe, which is the most widely read newspaper in New Hampshire, the second state to hold a contest, backed Mr Obama, saying the Illinois senator had the “leadership skills to reset the country’s reputation in the world”.
John McCain – the one-time Republican frontrunner, now running an underdog campaign – won both influential papers’ backing for his party’s nomination.
The Boston Globe said: “The iconoclastic senator from Arizona has earned his reputation for straight talk by actually levelling with voters, even at significant political expense.”
Mr McCain is far behind in Iowa, and is pinning much of his hopes on New Hampshire, though even there he is trailing in the polls.
Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee, the dark horse who has emerged as a leading Republican challenger, criticised the Bush administration’s handling of foreign policy, saying it had an “arrogant bunker mentality”.
Mr Huckabee wrote in the a new year edition of Foreign Affairs magazine: “My administration will recognise that the [US] main fight today does not pit us against the world but pits the world against the terrorists.”
He said: “American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up and reach out.”
The White House declined to comment, according to news agencies reports, but the campaign of a rival Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, said: “The attack on the presidency was something uncalled for.”
The weekend press endorsements set the stage for a tough Iowa caucus on January 3. In the last race, the backing of the Des Moines Register helped Mr Edwards, the former vice-presidential candidate, to perform much more strongly than expected, propelling him into the Democrats’ number-two slot.
This time the paper said of Mr Edwards: “We too seldom saw the positive optimistic campaign we found appealing in 2004.”
Mr Edwards, who remains a strong contender in Iowa, told ABC’s This Week programme that he did not apologise for promising to take on vested interests.
He said the US needed a “Teddy Roosevelt” style of president who would be tough on big corporations, for instance in healthcare.