NASHUA, N.H. — Pivoting off their upset wins in the Iowa caucuses, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee are taking on New Hampshire fortified by their stirring -- and markedly different -- victory speeches.
Where Obama's urgent address to his cheering supporters on caucus night was an updated, carefully staged version of the stump speech he has refined over months of repetition, Huckabee's delivery to his own delighted crowd was intimate and folksy, almost shambling in its breeziness and light humor.
But their performances showed both candidates poised and in artful mastery of their words, providing credibility and even some momentum at a critical early moment in the presidential race.
"If you listen to both of them you come away thinking they seem thoughtful and in control of the situation," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. "It helps inoculate them against attacks that they're inexperienced by showing them in command of their political rhetoric."
For Illinois Sen. Obama, who hopes to again overtake New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic race, New Hampshire looms as a far more critical test than it does for Huckabee, whose standings in that state's GOP polls are much lower than they were in Iowa and whose campaign organization has yet to tap the same formidable level of support from evangelical Christians.
Even though Obama's caucus-night speech may have been familiar to Iowans and New Hampshire residents who have attended his rallies in recent months, his evocation of "the moment when we finally beat back the policies of fear and doubts and cynicism" appeared to transfix pundits and television viewers alike, quickly echoing across the Internet.
"Huckabee's speech was excellent, but Barack Obama's speech was memorable," veteran former White House advisor David Gergen rhapsodized on CNN's "Larry King Live."
Video of Obama's speech on YouTube has received more than 550,000 hits over the last two days. Though many viewings were evidently prompted by links sent from Obama's campaign, some were probably seen by Web users simply curious about the growing media buzz provoked by his performance.
By comparison, Huckabee's caucus-night speech had been viewed just 21,000 times on YouTube by Saturday night. But the former Arkansas governor's low-key performance, which mixed a populist nod to his campaign's "prairie fire of new hope and zeal" with a quote from Christian thinker G.K. Chesterton, impressed both loyalists and less affiliated viewers.
