Obama, Clinton Spar in Final Days in New Hampshire

Their disagreements were scarcely veiled as Obama spoke of the virtues of hope and former frontrunner Hillary Clinton pushed back.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: It was because of hope that young people traveled down South to Selma and Montgomery, and marched, and sat in, and got beaten, and got fire-hosed, all in the cause of freedom. That's what hope is; that's what hope is. Imagining, imagining, and then working for, and then fighting for what has not been done before.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: If you gave a speech, and a very good speech, against the war in Iraq in 2002 and then by 2004 you're saying you're not sure how you would have voted, and by 2005, '06 and '07 you vote for $300 billion for the war you said you were against, that's not change.

GWEN IFILL: At a weekend debate, John Edwards and Bill Richardson sought to share of the change mantle with Obama.

FORMER SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D), Presidential Candidate: We need an unfiltered debate between the agents of change about how we bring about that change, because we have differences about that. But the one thing I do not argue with him about is he believes deeply in change, and I believe deeply in change.

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON (D), New Mexico: Look, what we need is change. There's no question. But, you know, whatever happened to experience? Is experience kind of a leper?

What is wrong with -- you know, what is wrong with having been, like myself, 14 years in the Congress, two cabinet positions? I mean, I've gone head-to-head with the North Koreans.

GWEN IFILL: But Obama has been drawing enthusiastic standing-room-only crowds throughout the state, parlaying his Iowa victory into a new bid for serious attention.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Let me just see a show of hands. How many people are still undecided about who to vote for? All right. See, we got a lot of live ones.

GWEN IFILL: How are you doing?

He talked to me after an event in Lebanon today.

So how does it feel in frontrunner land?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, I do not accept that mantle yet. You know, we won one race. I have no idea how the national polls are going.

But, you know, we feel very good about something that was triggered in Iowa. There is a sense of hopefulness, and interest, and engagement among the electorate that I don't think we've seen in a very, very long time.

GWEN IFILL: One thing that's been interesting just in the last five days is to watch how all the other candidates, including the Republicans, seem to have become candidates of change and hope.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: You know, it must be catching on. We've been talking about this thing for a while. But...

GWEN IFILL: What do you think it's about?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, look, nothing succeeds like success. People saw what happened in Iowa and they recognized how hungry people are for something different. And, by the way, it's not amorphous; it's not vague. It's something very specific.

GWEN IFILL: If it's true that people can look at you and say, "He's naive," then do you understand what Senator Clinton means when she says that you are raising false hopes?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Oh, that I completely reject. I mean, this notion of false hopes, I reject the entire premise. I think this crystallizes what this campaign is about.

I think there are so many people who are telling us what we can't do, that we are inevitably divided between red states and blue states, that politics always has to be mean and nasty and personally destructive, that, you know, the poor will always be with us, that, you know, race, will always dominate, and racism will prevent an African-American president, that in our foreign policy they're all out to kill us, and, you know, we've got to go our own way.

You know, I mean, that's not being realistic; that's just being lazy intellectually.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: Mr. Fire Marshall, we have chairs that people could actually fill if you could let some more people in. We could actually fill some of these chairs. We've got some places in the bleachers.

GWEN IFILL: As her popular husband took to the campaign trail to plead his wife's case.

BILL CLINTON, Former President of the United States: She is a world-class change-maker. She has spent a lifetime making good things happen for other people, including long before she was in office.

GWEN IFILL: Hello.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: How are you doing?

GWEN IFILL: I'm fine. How are you?

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: I am so glad to see you.

GWEN IFILL: Hillary Clinton sat down with me after a rally in Nashua.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: The way you tell who is most likely to actually deliver on the changes that America needs is by looking at our records, looking at what we each have done. And I put forward my 35 years of making positive change.

My argument is that voters have to pick a president, and they have to answer two questions. Who would be the best president? And who is best prepared to lead on day one? And who is our best candidate to withstand a tough, relentless campaign and be victorious in November 2008?

GWEN IFILL: Change and 35 years of experience, do the two conflict?

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: No, they don't, and that's a really important point. Change, apart from the strength and experience to make it happen, is a slogan. It's a word on a placard.

And if we're going to be claiming to be change agents, then let's hear from each of us what gives us the basis for making that claim.

So I do go back 35 years, because I want people to know that, long before I was ever in public office, long before I had cameras following me around, I was working to make change. This is who I am.

GWEN IFILL: Let's talk about the voters you're trying to appeal to, the independents, the undeclared, the undecideds. Only in New Hampshire are there all these different definitions of people who just haven't made up their minds. How are you speaking to them? How do you get to them?

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: Well, as you know, New Hampshire voters are famously and fiercely independent, and I respect that about them. And they take this vote very seriously.

I think that independent voters want somebody who they think is going to be able to produce results for them. What am I voting for? Who can I really count on?

Those are the kinds of questions I get, you know, when I go into rope lines, when I go into cafes, when I go into diners, when I'm meeting with people. They'll say, "Well, I'm an independent voter, and I'm trying to decide between you and someone else."

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: Hi, Rod, it's a pleasure.

NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: I voted for your husband, and I'm voting for you.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: Good, I need you.

GWEN IFILL: Voters seem flattered and energized by all the attention. Peter and Christy Bartlett say they have a mixed marriage. She's for Clinton; he's for Obama.

PETER BARTLETT, New Hampshire Voter: And to me, Hillary represents the old Democratic politics. I think they've had their day.

And I also look at it -- I mean, Hillary is my age; George Bush is my age; Bill's my age. We've had -- our generation has had 16 years in the White House. I think it's maybe time for the next generation to have a shot at it.

GWEN IFILL: Now, when he says that, what do you think?

CHRISTY BARTLETT, New Hampshire Voter: I think that the old Democratic Party is good. I think it was for the people. I think that there are a lot of changes that we need to go back to the way things were in the '90s, where the middle class had more of a say and the rich were not getting richer.

GWEN IFILL: But University of New Hampshire pollster Andrew Smith said an election that once seemed like a dead heat has fundamentally shifted in its last week.

ANDREW SMITH, University of New Hampshire: The biggest thing that happened between Iowa and New Hampshire this time around is Barack Obama won a race. Up until this time, a lot of his supporters were kind of soft. They weren't sure about this guy. They didn't know if he could win.

Now he's shown that he can win. And guess what? He's seen as electable as Hillary Clinton in this race.

GWEN IFILL: The final say goes to the voters of New Hampshire, who have turned confounding conventional wisdom into a quadrennial tradition. But this time, the candidates had to compress their closing arguments into four hectic days.

JOHN EDWARDS: What we're up against is we're up against two celebrity candidates who, between them, have raised over $200 million. But here's the good news: The people of New Hampshire have got a little bit of an independent streak, don't they? And they like to shake things up a little bit. And we're not going to have an auction in New Hampshire; we're going to have an election on Tuesday.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: ... the principal difference in this election is about. It is about how we bring about change by making sure we nominate and elect a doer, not a talker, that we begin to separate out rhetoric from reality.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: If you vote for me on Tuesday in this primary, then I promise you we will not just win this primary; we will win the nomination; and we will win the election. And we will go forward and change America and change the world.

GWEN IFILL: The New Hampshire secretary of state is predicting record voter turnout tomorrow.