Clinton claims momentum shifting to her in Iowa - Yahoo! News

Clinton claims momentum shifting to her in Iowa - Yahoo! News: "Clinton claims momentum shifting to her in Iowa" By Kay Henderson Tue Dec 18, 6:18 PM ET DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton claimed on Tuesday the momentum is shifting to her in Iowa, as rival Barack Obama fought back against her claims that he lacks experience Clinton, a New York senator seeking to become the first female U.S. president, is locked in a three-way fight in Iowa with Illinois Sen. Obama, who would be the first black president, and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards Iowa on January 3 starts the state-by-state votes to pick the Democratic and Republican candidates who will face off in the presidential election on November 4, 2008. A win in Iowa can generate momentum for the battles to come rapidly afterward. Clinton told reporters an endorsement of her candidacy by the Des Moines Register, the state's largest newspaper, gave her a boost. "I just sense the momentum and the energy that my campaign is generating," she said in Des Moines, appearing with former National Basketball Association star Magic Johnson as part of an effort to warm up her image with testimonials from friends and loyalists. Clinton's optimism aside, opinion polls in Iowa show the race remains essentially tied between her, Obama and Edwards. On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist preacher, used a television advertisement to wish the people of Iowa a merry Christmas -- a subtle reminder to the state's conservative Christian evangelicals that he wants to be their candidate. His rival Mitt Romney, who lost a big lead to Huckabee in Iowa, hopscotched across South Carolina, whose January 19 primary vote is the first in the South. Romney accused Huckabee of coddling illegal immigrants when he was governor of Arkansas by fighting to give school tuition breaks to their children. "We have very different views when it comes to sanctuary policies, if you will, as it relates to illegals," Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, said in Spartanburg. Romney and Rudy Giuliani, who leads national polls for the Republican nomination, talked tough on Cuba, a day after ailing Cuban President Fidel Castro suggested in a letter he might give up his formal leadership post. "America and the supporters of a free Cuba must remain firm in helping the Cuban people liberate themselves completely from their oppressors," said Giuliani, who was New York mayor during the September 11 attacks in 2001. WORN OUT Obama said his foreign policy vision would be informed by his experience as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, official travel to Africa, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union, and living in Indonesia as a child. He said he would be willing to change U.S. foreign policy to engage with hostile nations such as Iran. Speaking at a foreign policy forum in Des Moines, Obama said he would bring to office a sense of "hope that this moment of challenge can become a dawn of new opportunity" instead of a "mind-set of fear that we have been fed since 9/11 -- fear of looking weak, fear of new challenges, fear of the unknown." Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, raised the experience issue about Obama by telling the PBS network last Friday that he wondered if Americans were prepared to "roll the dice" and vote for the first-term senator. Huckabee, who has risen from deep down in the pack to lead the Republican field in Iowa, wore a red sweater for his Christmas season ad. "Are you about worn out of all the television commercials you've been seeing, mostly about politics? I don't blame you," Huckabee said. "At this time of year, sometimes it's nice to pull aside from all that and just remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ, and being with our family and our friends." The spot has drawn attention from some because, as the camera pans across, the edges of what look to be a bookshelf in the background form a Christian cross. One Republican candidate, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, questioned Huckabee's motives in a Fox News interview. "You wonder about using a cross like he is the only Christian or implying that subtly," Paul said. (Additional reporting Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by David Alexander and John O'Callaghan) (To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)