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White House race a cliffhanger
11/12/2007 12:05 - (SA)
Washington - Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are locked in a tense dogfight and Republican sensation Mike Huckabee is rocketing upwards, as a cliffhanger White House races enter the home stretch.
Tightening opinion polls raised the stakes for a looming Republican debate on Wednesday and a Democratic clash on Thursday, both in Iowa, the last head-to-head showdown of candidates before the state's leadoff caucuses on January 3.
New Hampshire holds its primaries five days later, launching a flurry of contests which could see party nominees crowned by the first week in February, in the longest, most expensive White House race on record.
Obama on Monday basked in a publicity blitz after his weekend campaign duet with talk-show diva Oprah Winfrey, while two new Republican polls confirmed Huckabee's numbers rising even outside his new Iowa stronghold.
A new CNN/Opinion Research poll found Huckabee chasing down long-time national front-runner Rudolph Giuliani, backed by 22% of Republican voters nationwide, compared to 24% for the former New York mayor.
It was a similar story in a CBS News/New York Times poll, which had the former Arkansas governor on 21% of party primary votes, a point behind Giuliani, a stunning achievement after polling just four percent in October.
"O-Mentum"
Both polls had Clinton with a solid double digit national lead over Obama.
A total of 66 500 people showed up to weekend rallies in Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire, as Winfrey tried to turn her faithful millions of viewers into ballot-box gold for Obama, his campaign said.
"O-Mentum" blared the New York Post with a front page splash of Winfrey, America's top earning celebrity, at one of the Obama events.
"Dr (Martin Luther) King dreamed the dream, but we don't have to just dream the dream any more," Oprah told the crowd of predominantly Africa-American fans in South Carolina on Sunday.
"We get to vote that dream into reality by supporting a man who knows not just who we are, but who we can be."
Bill Clinton hits campaign trail
In response, Clinton sent former president Bill Clinton, still wildly popular among Democrats, to South Carolina and Iowa on Monday and campaigned with her mother Dorothy Rodham and daughter Chelsea at the weekend.
New weekend polls showed both races narrowing in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
Clinton led Obama 27% to 25% in Iowa, 30% to 27% in New Hampshire, and by 28% to 25% in South Carolina, according to MSNBC/Mason Dixon polls.
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