All eyes on New Hampshire now

As the presidential election moves here on Friday, many New Hampshire voters remain undecided...

As the presidential election moves here on Friday, many New Hampshire voters remain undecided about the candidate.

“I am a registered Democrat, and I will vote a Democrat,” Maura Willing said, who is a homemaker. “But I don’t know whom I am going to settle for.”

Estes, who is self-employed, has been an undeclared voter all his life. But this time, he is leaning toward the Democrats. He hopes to see the two leading candidates — Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — as a team pitted against Republicans in the general election in November.

Obama and Clinton are running close to each other in opinion polls. In a poll by a local newspaper in Concord, Obama was leading last month by just one per cent. The poll found 32 per cent of likely Democratic primary voters surveyed backed Obama, 31 per cent were with Clinton, and 18 per cent were for John Edwards, the third leading Democratic candidate.

But New Hampshire has a sizeable population of independent voters. Among those voters, 40 per cent are likely to vote for Obama compared to 23 per cent for Clinton, according to the survey.

Issues in this election are clear for most voters in Concord — healthcare, petrol prices and border security. Unlike past elections, foreign policy is surging as a concern among some voters. They express concern that Iraq has done much damage to the image of their country, and they need a President to repair that.

The Bush administration “has really damaged our reputation”, said Maura Willing, a homemaker. “We shouldn’t have a closed door policy that we are the greatest country on earth and no one else matters. And Clinton could be good at that.”

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When it comes to US foreign policy, Jim Steiner wants to support the Republican front-runner, John McCain. He cites the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan as an example of the need for better US foreign policy. “The tragic and unfortunate unrest” from the assassination “really bring home the need for the next President of the United States to be sound”. He suggests Republican John McCain as the best qualified.

Some Democrats see their party presenting some exciting choices that will appeal to many voters. “A lot will vote in the Democratic primary,” Anne Edwards, who is carefully weighing her options, said, “because it will be the first opportunity to vote for a woman, an African-American, or a Hispanic – all in the same primary.”