NASHUA, New Hampshire — A smaller field of presidential candidates arrived in New Hampshire Friday facing a dramatically upended campaign after two one-time insurgents — Senator Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat, and Mike Huckabee, the Arkansas Republican — won the Iowa caucuses Thursday night.
Mr. Obama, 46, a first-term senator trying to become the nation’s first African-American president, carried his message of change directed at young and independent voters, but he has little time to revel in his victory.
The first primary in the nation is being held here in just four days, on Tuesday. And Senator Hillary Clinton, stung by her third-place finish, was already pressing the case that she has the experience that her younger rival lacks.
Supporters in Nashua cheered wildly as Bill Clinton took the stage to introduce his wife, who then asked the crowd, “Are you ready for the next five days? Well, I am.”
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney limped into the Portsmouth airport in the middle of the night after conceding defeat in Iowa Thursday night to former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, despite outspending him by millions of dollars and working the state for nearly a year.
Meanwhile, Mr. Huckabee appeared on morning television shows with a recalibrated message for the next battleground, highlighting an antitax theme that tends to resonate in New Hampshire.
And Mr. Romney’s earlier lead in this state faces another challenge from Senator John McCain, who was rising in polls with the added benefit of a respectable showing in Iowa despite buying no television ads there.
Throughout the night, Mr. Huckabee, Mr. Romney and the vast throng of media that is shadowing their every step poured into the Granite State, knowing that the sprint over the next few days will leave little time for major revisions in strategy and message.
New Hampshire represents a vastly different landscape for both parties, in part because independents make up nearly half of all registered voters.
Unlike Iowa, where only a sliver of the state’s population voted, New Hampshire officials expect record turnouts of more than 80 percent, and the candidates are expected to heavily court the independent voters who can participate in either primary.
In his victory speech Thursday night, Mr. Obama seemed to acknowledge the changed landscape, dropping any criticisms of President Bush in favor of a message of bi-partisanship — a theme that first catapulted him to national stardom during a speech at the Democratic convention in 2004.
“They said this day would never come,” he said Thursday night in Iowa. “They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together. But on this January night at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn’t do.”
Mrs. Clinton will likely increasingly stress the “change” theme as well in coming days, and she is counting on an operation in place in New Hampshire to blunt the impact of Thursday night’s results. This weekend, her campaign has set the goal of knocking on more than 100,000 doors, building on below-the-radar efforts beforehand. A vast voter outreach effort has included some 1.4 million calls and 200 staff on the ground.
In the few days that remain, according to advisers, Mrs. Clinton will also use well-known surrogates — from national figures like General Wesley Clark to prominent local leaders like New Hampshire Speaker of the House Terie Norelli — to press her theme of being ready to lead from the moment she takes office.
Of course, there is also her husband, who cast his second place finish here in 1992 as a historic comeback and remains overwhelmingly popular among core Democratic voters.
Mr. Edwards remains more a of a wild card, with a second place finish in Iowa giving him some claim to momentum, though he is still largely overshadowed by his better financed and better organized rivals.
He called himself “Seabiscuit.”
His message of economic populism could prove powerful in a state where voters are anxious about troubling signs such as the rising price of oil — now close to $100 a barrel.
Both Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton, however, face a real challenge in Mr. Obama’s evident appeal to young voters and those tired of Washington.
Mr. Obama’s courting of independent voters could eat into Mr. McCain’s support, although the McCain campaign, while not denying that the candidates appeal to some of the same voters, believes the impact can be overstated.
“Some Independent voters may be intrigued by Obama, but for those trying to choose between McCain and Obama we are confident they will view John McCain as the candidate who has been in Washington fighting for change,” said Mike Dennehy, a top McCain strategist. “Obama has talked a lot about it, but there’s no meat on the bone.”
taken of nytimes.com