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Republican helps Hillary
22/12/2007 12:17 - (SA)
Concord, New Hampshire - US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigned with a little help from her friends - Republican ones - and family on Friday.
Clinton, in a tight race with rival Barack Obama in the first primary-voting state, was joined by her mother, Dorothy Rodham, and her daughter, Chelsea, as she appealed to female voters at the start of a two-day campaign swing.
Rodham and the younger Clinton did not address the crowd.
Clinton planned to tell New Hampshire voters how she reached across party lines and produced results - echoing television ads already on the air. She also dispatched supporters to vouch for her record and soften the sometimes harsh public caricature that has frustrated her campaign.
"This is a person who can reach common ground and never compromise her principles," New Yorker Jeff Volk said, telling the story of being stuck in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 and how Clinton helped him.
"I met one of the most caring, compassionate and informed people I have ever met in my entire life," said Volk, a Republican who has given the maximum of $2 300 to Clinton's campaign and $5 000 to Clinton's political action committee in 2007.
Clinton, standing beside Volk, said only through bipartisan work can "a sense of fear and fatalism coming from the White House" be erased.
"A lot of the problems that we face in America are not Democratic or Republican problems. They are American problems and I want us to start acting like Americans again," she said. "I want us to roll up our sleeves and solve our problems."
Clinton leads Obama, 42% to 25%, among women in the latest CNN-WMUR poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire. She leads overall in that poll, 38% to 26%, but trails slightly among independents. A day earlier, Obama met with a small group of New Hampshire independents to build his slight edge there.
A separate poll, released on Friday from USA Today and Gallup, showed both Clinton and Obama at 32% general support each.
- AP
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