With one month to go, presidential rivals turn the campaign into a fight club

On Sunday December 2, Hillary Clinton turned up the heat against Barack Obama (photo Elizabeth Rockett) and questioned his “courage” and “convictions”
With republicans fighting over illegal immigration to the U.S., the battle between Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani is getting more personal.
In Iowa, Mitt Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, is surging among republicans.

New York. With the Iowa caucuses less than 30 days away, U.S. candidates are starting to hit each other where it really hurts. After clearly leading in the polls for months, Hillary Clinton now finds herself in a tight race with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (photo Elizabeth Rockett), and John Edwards. A new poll by the Des Moines Register shows Mr Obama surging in Iowa. The only African-American candidate to the White House is leading Hillary Clinton by 27 percent to 25 percent, with former North Carolina senator John Edwards close behind in third place at 23 percent.

The former First Lady decided to turn up the heat against her main rival Barack Obama. On Sunday, the New York Senator questioned Mr Obama’s “courage” and “convictions”. “I think the people of Iowa need to know there’s a big difference between our plans,” she said on Sunday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, when speaking about Mr Obama’s health care plan . “But more importantly there’s a big difference between our courage and our convictions, what we believe and what we’re willing to fight for.” Mrs Clinton added “the people of Iowa are going to get a chance to chose between someone who talks the talk, and someone who walked the walk.”

The Clinton campaign is now trying to make sure she does not finish third in Iowa. What was a crazy idea only a couple of weeks ago, is now a real possibility. Both Mr Obama and Mr Edwards have gained strength and have been attacking Hillary Clinton. Mr Obama has criticized for months her 2002 vote to authorize the Iraq war. On November 30, at the Democratic National Committee’s winter meeting, he again accused Hillary Clinton of running a “textbook” campaign. “The same old Washington textbook campaigns just won’t do in this election”, Mr Obama said. Telling the American people what we think they want to hear instead of telling the American people what they need to hear just won’t do.”

Barack Obama has been trying to define his candidacy as the only one capable of bridging the gap between Democrats and Republicans. He mostly avoids criticizing his rivals directly but throws subtle punches at them. After he was criticized last week for his use of Political Action Committee (PAC) money in his campaign, Mr Obama countered on December 2 in Des Moines: “I think that folks from some of the other campaigns are reading the polls and starting to get stressed and issuing a whole range of outlandish accusations”.

On December 3 2007, His campaign launched a new website called “Hillary Attacks”, whose sole purpose is to track “attack” from Mrs Clinton. The first headline read “Another Day, Another Set of Attacks from Hillary Clinton.”

With less than a month to go before the January 3 Iowa caucuses, Democrats are not the only ones to come out firing. Republicans are also slamming each other. Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, the two leading contenders in a packed conservative field, are accusing each other of being weak on illegal immigration. “He welcomed illegal aliens to the city,” the former Massachusetts governor said about Giuliani on November 16. “That sanctuary state of mind is one of the reasons we have so many illegal immigrants in our country today.”

The former mayor of New York fired back during the CNN/Youtube republican debate on November 28 in Florida. “Mitt usually criticizes people when he usually has the far worse record,” he said.” “There was even a sanctuary mansion. At his own home, illegal immigrants were being employed”. Mitt Romney had contracted a landscaping company for years, which had hired undocumented immigrants.

While Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani are going head-to-head on their records, another man is surging. Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and Baptist reverend, has seen his stature rise in an unsettled GOP field in the last few weeks. Some polls even put him ahead in Iowa despite the fact that he hardly campaigned in Iowa in the last month and he keeps avoiding attacking fellow republicans directly.

Jean-Cosme Delaloye

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