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A year to go in White House race
05/11/2007 14:55 - (SA)
Washington - A year to the day before Americans elect their 44th president, sniping against Democratic favourite Hillary Clinton is soaring, while Republicans continue to battle over their party's soul.
"The Republican and Democratic Parties are going through internal battles over their very identity, even as the races for their presidential nominations intensify," the New York Times said Sunday, marking the one-year stage in what is regarded as the most open US leadership contest in decades.
Candidates made little mention of the symbolic one-year point before one Republican and one Democratic face off on November 4, 2008, for the White House. But the intense campaign rhetoric of past months showed no let-up.
Democratic candidate John Edwards, running a close third behind Clinton and Barack Obama in polls in the early voting state of Iowa, kept up his attacks on the former first lady.
"She operates within a corrupt system and defends it," he told ABC News on Sunday, referring to what he regards as the undue influence of lobbying interests in Washington.
Second-place Democratic hopeful Barack Obama also attacked Clinton on Saturday, saying she would fail to mend a divided society. Her campaign accused him in turn of going on the attack because he was down in the polls.
Clinton in the lead
The campaign, the most protracted and expensive on record, already seems to have been dragging on for ever.
But a full year of slash and burn campaign ads, multi-million dollar fundraising grabs and hard-knock politics is ahead, before voters do their civic duty in 2008.
Clinton, bent on becoming the first woman president, leads every important Democratic national and state poll, eight weeks before the first nominating contest - the Iowa caucuses.
A Newsweek poll released on Saturday showed her lead holding firm, despite a battering by other candidates in a debate on Tuesday.
Among registered Democrats and voters leaning towards the party, Clinton had 44% support, ahead of Obama's 24% and Edwards on 12%.
The poll have her a narrow lead over the leading Republican candidate, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, 49 to 45%.
But her top rivals Edwards and Obama, after months in her shadow, are showing signs of life, prompting the first wobbles of her campaign in Tuesday's bracing presidential debate.
Clinton is also taking intense fire from Republicans.
"The perception that she is unstoppable has made her the prime target for all the other candidates, Republican and Democratic, and the wounds are showing," said Maurice Carroll, Director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Obama exploded into presidential politics with a reputation as a lyrical speechmaker with rock-star charisma. But the man who would be America's first black president has yet to turn expectations into reality.
Edwards, the vice-presidential nominee in 2004, is trying to stay in the Democratic party's top tier - and all his chips are on the Iowa caucuses on January 3.
Republican toss-up
The Republican battle meanwhile is a toss-up, with the mighty Christian conservative voting bloc still seeking a champion.
Giuliani tops national polls, but alienates evangelicals with his stands on gay rights and abortion.
Former screen star and Senator Fred Thompson tried to fill the vacuum, but has flatlined so far. Senator John McCain, once the front-runner, is fighting a cash crunch.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney leads in the key Iowa and New Hampshire battlegrounds which host key early nominating contests, but raises suspicions of religious voters with his Mormon faith.
The winning Republican formula may involve working out how to portray President George W Bush's legacy, and the drag on Republican fortunes of the unpopular Iraq war.
Iran, and the spectre of a US military strike against its nuclear plants, is an emerging electoral battleground. Healthcare, the economy and the "war on terror" are also top issues.
Americans increasingly angry with country's course
With Americans, especially Democrats and independents, increasingly angry with their country's course, a Pew Research survey this month showed Democrats leading Republicans 50% to 36% in party preference rankings.
As the first American election since 1928 with no incumbent president or vice-president in the game at any stage, the 2008 contest is the most open for generations.
The traditional step-by-step path to the party nominations has been torn up meanwhile. Big states such as California and Florida, fed up with Iowa and New Hampshire's influence, have brought nominating contests forward.
"In campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina ... we have got a long way to go," McCain told CNN news on Sunday.
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