Presidential Elections 2008

No one ever accused Bill O'Reilly of being a wilting flower. So when the Fox News Channel commentator and interviewer appeared midway through a Barack Obama rally at a Nashua high school Saturday, his presence was evident. Tall, with camera crew in tow, O'Reilly marched forward to get a good look. Journalists have been known to seek the best angle. But it was after Obama's speech that O'Reilly threw some elbows. And not so figuratively, either.

Not so long ago, it would have been unimaginable that full-throated support for the larger troop presence in Iraq could be considered a political asset in New Hampshire, where discontent with the war's course fueled sweeping Democratic gains in the 2006 midterm election. But Sen. John McCain clearly believes the significant drop in U.S. casualties has altered political dynamics.

Barack Obama is Kennedyesque. Mike Huckabee is Reaganesque. And those observations mean merely this: Both are upbeat candidates who radiate optimism and conviction. They don't reflect the dark side of politics. They exude hope. These attributes have always had a special appeal for California voters, who -- because of what Iowans did Thursday -- are likely to be offered a bigger role in the presidential nominating process Feb. 5 than many pundits had predicted.

A few minutes after 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, dozens of volunteers filtered into a storefront campaign headquarters where a massive photograph of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton smiled out from a window beneath a dingy Whirlpool appliance sign. The plan for the day was to get boots on the ground for a door-to-door canvass of Nashua, about 15 miles down the Merrimack River from Manchester. The Clinton organizers were eager to get started on the crucial last Sunday before Tuesday's primary.

He was wonky, folksy and occasionally self-deprecating. And though Bill Clinton never alluded to his wife's defeat in Thursday's Iowa caucuses, he said he was baffled by the way her years of public service had been perceived as a liability. Still, the former president said Sunday he believed that his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, demonstrated in Saturday night's Democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire that she was the best candidate.

Here's the billion-dollar question about this city's billionaire mayor: Is he going to run for president, or what? The discussion is playing out on tabloid pages, on radio and television talk shows, and in cafes and bookstores across New York, where everyone seems to have an opinion about the presidential election. And if Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg jumps into the race, they say it will get even more interesting. "The conversation is, 'Oh, my God, is he going to do this?'

With their presidential hopes and political legacy on the line, Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband battled across New Hampshire on Sunday, fighting to become the comeback couple of the 2008 race. Change was the word on their lips as they campaigned across this slushy state -- separately, to cover more ground -- taking thinly veiled shots at rival Barack Obama. "You campaign in poetry.

John Edwards launched a new television spot and a final, marathon bus tour through this state Sunday, acknowledging he was the underdog but insisting he would not give up a Democratic presidential contest that increasingly centered on Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Two days before the New Hampshire primary that could make or break his White House candidacy, a combative Mitt Romney quarreled with rivals John McCain and Mike Huckabee over taxes, crime and job experience in a testy Republican debate that exposed growing animosity among the candidates. Romney's attacks set off a cascade of counter-assaults on the former Massachusetts governor, who has placed enormous stakes on winning here but has slid behind McCain in the polls.

Volunteers for Barack Obama's presidential campaign fanned out into black neighborhoods over the weekend with new instructions: Tell undecided voters that Obama "proved the cynics wrong in the Iowa caucuses." The message about Obama's decisive Iowa victory Thursday is familiar to those who have heard his theme of transcending old-style politics.