Clinton, Romney on Offensive As Pivotal Contest Draws Near

Video

Mitt Romney told a crowd in Nashua, N.H. Sunday that he is better qualified than John McCain to take on Barack Obama if he is the Democratic nominee.

» LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER

Of Obama, she said, "if you give a speech saying you're going to vote against the Patriot Act and you don't -- that's not change. If you say that you're going to prevent members of Congress from having lunch with lobbyists sitting down, but they still can have lunch standing up, that's not change."

She continued to use the "that's not change" mantra, with an enthusiastic audience eventually joining in the chant. Clinton's challenges in regaining an advantage in the race with an emboldened Obama go beyond sagging poll numbers, some of her own supporters acknowledge. Campaign officials have sounded the alarm about shortcomings in their organization in South Carolina, the next major contest on the Democratic calendar, causing concern that she will be outmatched in the primary there on Jan. 26.

But her campaign is continuing to hire staffers in key states that will vote in the Feb. 5 primaries, an indication that Clinton is determined to carry the race forward.

Obama drew overflow crowds as he campaigned across the state Sunday, but Clinton's attacks from the debate the night before lingered, adding an intensity to his typically breezy and uplifting stump speech. "We don't need leaders telling us what we cannot do. We need a president who can tell us what we can do," he said to a roaring crowd.

One of the Obama campaign's most pressing concerns is that an increasingly popular McCain, who leads the GOP field here, will siphon away independent votes, allowing Clinton to win. To add heft to his pitch to independents, Obama will be joined on the campaign trail Monday by former senator Bill Bradley (N.J.), a favorite of moderate and unaffiliated voters and among the vanguard in a wave of establishment endorsements that is expected to break should Obama prevail again.

Edwards, meanwhile, struck an emotional closing note, surrounded by the family of Nataline Sarkisyan, who died last month after her insurance company balked at paying for a liver transplant.

Edwards helped organize a protest that persuaded the insurer to offer, just hours before Sarkisyan's death, to pay for the procedure, and he has told her story repeatedly over the past 10 days. Her parents and brother contacted the campaign after hearing Edwards cite their experience as an example of what is wrong with the health insurance system. They flew into Manchester to appear with Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, at a jampacked downtown venue.

Edwards also went out of his way to assure New Hampshire voters Sunday that he will not quit the race if he fails to break through here. In 2004, as he did last week, Edwards finished second in the Iowa caucuses, then slipped further in New Hampshire before winning the South Carolina primary. Once again this year, Edwards is operating at a financial disadvantage. Nonetheless, he vowed: "I am in this race for the long haul. I am in it through the convention and into the White House."

Staff writer David S. Broder contributed to this report from New Hampshire.