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/ 4 February 2008

Clinton lead dwindles ahead of Super Tuesday

Hillary Clinton tried on Sunday to bring Barack Obama’s aspirational candidacy back to earth, repeatedly accusing him of misleading voters in an attempt to halt his poll momentum ahead of the Super Tuesday contest. With opinion polls showing Obama making significant gains, Clinton tried to undermine Obama’s central appeal of being a politician who operated above the fray.

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/ 2 February 2008

US campaign frenzy ahead of Super Tuesday

White House hopefuls have launched a frantic blitz with the stakes enormous heading into ”Super Tuesday” and the home stretch of the costliest and longest United States election campaign in history. Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were criss-crossing the country over the weekend.

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/ 1 February 2008

Clinton, Obama make peace with eye on history

Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton shared a debate stage alone for the first time on Thursday, striking a cordial tone and highlighting their opportunity to make history as the next United States president. ”Just by looking at us, you can tell we aren’t more of the same,” said Clinton, a New York senator who would be the first woman US president.

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/ 30 January 2008

Edwards drops out of White House race

Democratic candidate John Edwards abandoned his United States presidential bid on Wednesday, while among Republicans challenger Mitt Romney vowed to keep up his struggle to overtake newly crowned front-runner John McCain. Edwards’s decision effectively narrows both the Democratic and Republican field to two realistic candidates apiece.

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/ 29 January 2008

Giuliani expected to endorse Florida winner McCain

Rudy Giuliani is expected to throw his weight behind John McCain’s campaign for the Republican nomination after the senator for Arizona won a convincing victory in the Florida primary to become the clear front runner. McCain now goes into next week’s Super Tuesday contest with huge momentum behind him after beating Mitt Romney in the biggest primary so far.

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/ 28 January 2008

Now Obama has the momentum

Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton jockeyed for position on Sunday in a bruising United States presidential race after Obama scored a landslide win in a South Carolina primary tinged with the issue of race. ”I think [the result] speaks extraordinarily well, not just for folks in the South, but all across the country,” said Obama.

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/ 27 January 2008

Obama rolls to big South Carolina win

Barack Obama easily won South Carolina’s bitterly contested Democratic presidential primary with the help of heavy black support on Saturday, dealing a setback to rival Hillary Clinton after a week of political brawling. John Edwards finished third in a state he won during his failed 2004 race.

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/ 25 January 2008

Violence erupts in Kenya despite talks

Ethnic fighting killed at least 12 people in Kenya’s Rift Valley and forced thousands from their homes on Friday. The violence, and a denial by opposition leader Raila Odinga that he would agree to serve as prime minister under President Mwai Kibaki, followed the first meeting between the two rivals since a disputed December 27 election triggered a political crisis.

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/ 24 January 2008

Hair, nails and politics

At first sight, Salon Fabulous doesn’t quite live up to its name. A trailer in a car park in a neighbourhood of dilapidated houses and rusting cars on the outskirts of Columbia, the state capital of South Carolina, it doesn’t hold out much promise of transformation.

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/ 24 January 2008

Clinton, Obama take war of words to airwaves

Democratic presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton took their escalating war of words to the airwaves on Wednesday, launching radio ads in South Carolina directly attacking each other. Three days ahead of South Carolina’s Democratic presidential primary, Clinton aired a radio ad ridiculing Obama’s recent comments.

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/ 21 January 2008

Obama blasts Bill Clinton ahead of debate

Barack Obama lashed out at rival Hillary Clinton’s husband, Bill, on Monday, calling the former president’s role in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination ”pretty troubling”. ”You know, the former president … has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling,” Obama said.

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/ 19 January 2008

US race moves to Nevada, South Carolina

Voters in the American west and south will get their first chance on Saturday to have a say in the tightest and most chaotic race for the White House in decades. According to polls, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a virtual dead heat in Nevada, which holds its caucuses on Saturday for Democrats and Republicans.

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/ 13 January 2008

Romney, McCain debate jobs in depressed Michigan

Republican rivals Mitt Romney and John McCain clashed on Saturday over how to revive the depressed economy of Michigan, as the most open United States presidential race in decades approached its next big test. Romney needs to win the Republican primary here on Tuesday after losing Iowa to former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and New Hampshire to McCain.

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/ 11 January 2008

Kerry snubs Edwards by backing Obama

John Kerry, the senator who ran against George Bush in 2004, endorsed Barack Obama yesterday in a slap in the face to Hillary Clinton and to John Edwards, his vice-presidential running mate in 2004. ”Martin Luther King Jr said the time is always right to do what is right,” Kerry told a rally in South Carolina.

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/ 11 January 2008

The tears over coffee that turned round poll

It was the defining moment of the New Hampshire race: Hillary Clinton, the icy control queen of the Democratic party welling up with emotion — and it may have won her an improbable victory over Barack Obama. The emotional moment in a cafĂ© on the eve of Tuesday’s poll was widely credited on Thursday for bringing female voters back to the Clinton fold.

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/ 7 January 2008

Hillary faces fight to stay in presidential race

Historians will be able to specify the time and the place where Hillary Clinton started to turn the tide. At 10.15am on Sunday, in the car park of the Puritan Backroom restaurant in Manchester, New Hampshire, in front of a couple of hundred unfashionably fervent Hillary supporters, Clinton chose to make what may turn out to be her last stand.