MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (AFP) — As Hillary Clinton basked Wednesday in the glow of her stunning primary win in New Hampshire, White House hopefuls retooled their campaigns and girded for the next battlegrounds of the gruelling 2008 race.
Senator Clinton's vanquished opponent, Barack Obama, headed deep into her New York turf for a Manhattan fundraiser as he vied to sustain the electrifying energy that has fueled his bid to be America's first black president.
Some of that energy was sapped by the former first lady's come-from-behind triumph in New Hampshire Tuesday, when women, older voters and grassroots Democrats propelled Clinton to a 39-36 percent win over Obama.
The Republican race was also blown wide open as Senator John McCain staged his own unlikely comeback in the year's second nominating contest, following last week's Iowa caucuses, to beat Mitt Romney into second place.
The upset results left both parties' races uncertain with no clear front-runner to replace President George W. Bush, who started a week-long trip in the Middle East Wednesday and has not declared a favored successor.
Clinton's surprise victory defied opinion polls and echoed husband Bill's "Comeback Kid" performance in New Hampshire in 1992 on his road to the White House.
Interviewed on CNN, the steely Clinton credited part of her late turnaround to voters seeing her unvarnished human side, when she nearly wept during a campaign stop on Monday as she spoke of her passion to remake America.
It was "just a really wonderful moment," she said, as everyone had seen "why I'm going to wage this campaign for the future of our country and to give everybody the same set of chances that I was given."
Obama said he was happier in the role of "insurgent" after his coup in Iowa, built on an inspirational oratory that won over many independents, came narrowly short of being replicated in New Hampshire.
Speaking on MSNBC News, he said that owing to the Iowa win, observers "started to anoint us in a way that they were anointing Senator Clinton back in the summer -- and that's always a dangerous place to be."
"And I feel a lot more comfortable now understanding this is a victory we are going to have to earn," he said.
Clinton spent Wednesday at her home in upstate New York huddled with her core advisors -- some of whom were fearing for their jobs in the face of polls that had predicted a New Hampshire landslide for Obama.
"I cannot tell you how excited, fired up she is, as we move out of New Hampshire into the next 25 days through February 5th," Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe told reporters.
All the candidates hope to score a definitive victory when primary voters cast ballots on February 5 in more than 20 states, including giants California, New York and New Jersey.
En route to "Super Tuesday," Obama is banking on taking South Carolina and its army of black voters when the first southern state to take part in the 2008 race holds its Democratic primary on January 26.
A week prior to that will be caucuses in Nevada, where the Illinois senator's prospects got a big lift with the endorsement Wednesday of the desert state's biggest union.
"Barack Obama has shown us that he understands our members' struggles and dreams," said D. Taylor, secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, which controls the unionized workers of Las Vegas casinos.
Both Clinton and Obama were heading to South Carolina in the coming days to join former vice presidential nominee John Edwards, who was greeted by hundreds of well-wishers on his return to his home state Wednesday.
Edwards finished third in New Hampshire and second in Iowa, and is also trailing in the South Carolina polls. But he insisted that his populist campaign to rein in corporate giants was set for the long haul.
Among the Republicans, McCain and former Massachusetts governor Romney decamped to Michigan ahead of its primary on January 15.
After his lavishly funded campaign foundered in Iowa and New Hampshire, Romney must win Michigan, the state of his birth, where his father was a popular governor before seeing his own presidential hopes falter in 1968.
Waiting in the wings for Super Tuesday is the tough-talking former mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, while Bible-thumping Iowa winner Mike Huckabee has high hopes for South Carolina.
New Hampshire primary victories for Clinton and McCain
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