WASHINGTON — Carol Levesque, a retired New Hampshire social worker, used to think Hillary Rodham Clinton was not cut out for the White House. Levesque looked askance at Clinton's decision to run for the U.S. Senate. She was lukewarm about how Clinton conducted herself as first lady to an unfaithful husband.
Now, Levesque is an avid fan. After seeing Clinton three times, she was wowed by the New York Democrat's apparent brainpower. She was, to use her word, "underwhelmed" by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) when he made a presidential campaign stop in Peterborough, N.H., recently. And as the granddaughter of a pioneering supporter of women's suffrage, Levesque, 65, is thrilled with the prospect of electing a woman president.
Levesque's conversion offers a window into how Clinton has emerged as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination: One of the most demonized politicians in America has begun to win a second look from skeptics. And among women and seniors, such as Levesque, she has built big leads over her rivals.
That underscores one of Clinton's most important assets in the turbulent few months ahead of the balloting set for early January. She has built a political base -- reflected in polls -- of voters who dominate the Democratic nominating process: seniors, women and blue-collar voters.
That's a troublesome trend for Obama, who has drawn his support mainly from the young and the affluent. He had been considered the candidate most likely to slow the Clinton juggernaut. But her lead in national polls has widened. Nationally, Clinton leads Obama 38% to 22%, according to the latest Pollster.com aggregation of surveys. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards is under 14%. The latest campaign reports showed that in the last three months, Clinton for the first time raised more money than Obama.
Still, a Clinton nomination is far from a foregone conclusion. In Iowa, whose voters are first in the nominating process, the race is effectively a toss-up among Clinton, Obama and Edwards. Many presidential front-runners have been thrown off course by an early upset or by failing to meet the expectations that attach to the leader in national polls. And Clinton is still struggling to allay a concern among many Democrats that she is too polarizing to win the general election.
Her rivals say that national surveys reflect little more than Clinton's high name recognition. They suggest that most voters have yet to focus on alternative candidates.
