Obama supporters ready for fight

For Britt Hatch, a volunteer for the Obama campaign in New Hampshire, the past two weeks of the US presidential race have come as an unwelcome surprise.

“I had become complacent,” she said. “I thought the election was in the bag. Then, all of a sudden, we’ve got this big fight on our hands.”

Her anxiety was widely shared among the 8,000 people that turned up to see Barack Obama in Manchester over the weekend, amid mounting Democratic jitters about declining poll numbers and escalating Republican attacks.

The celebratory atmosphere of past Obama rallies was replaced by a defiant mood as the candidate and his supporters tried to reassure each other that the election could and would still be won.

Mr Obama warned that the Republicans were distorting his record and creating distractions to obscure their own failures but insisted the negative tactics that helped George W. Bush win the past two elections would fall short this year. “The times are too serious for those strategies to work this time,” he said. “We are here to say, ‘enough is enough’.”

His rallying cry was met with roars of approval from the crowd packed into a city centre park but, when questioned individually, many supporters sounded less confident about his ability to weather the storm. “I’m very worried because we’ve seen this movie before,” said Robert Spurrier, a school teacher. “The Republican attack machine shifts the election away from issues and turns it into a battle of personalities.”

There was broad agreement that Mr Obama must respond aggressively to attacks but avoid being dragged into the mud. “He’s got to show he can stick up for himself,” said Gail Sommer, another teacher. “But he needs to do it in a way that’s truthful and honorable and gets us back on the issues.”

Mr Obama signalled that he was heeding calls for a more aggressive approach with a punchy stump speech that combined cool anger about the country’s problems with mockery of John McCain’s claims to be the man to fix them.

The crowd hooted with derision as the Illinois senator sarcastically picked apart his opponent’s claims to be an agent of change. “He’s saying, ‘watch out George Bush, with the exception of tax policy, healthcare policy, education policy, energy policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics, we’re really going to shake things up in Washington.”

He avoided direct attacks against Sarah Palin, Mr McCain’s running mate and the catalyst of Republican resurgence. But his supporters showed less restraint.

“You want to know the honest truth? I think she’s like a bad actor from a B-list sex movie,” said Paula Vanbuskirk, an Obama-supporting independent, whose contempt for the Alaska governor and self-styled “hockey mom” was shared by almost everyone questioned by the Financial Times.

If it was Mr McCain’s intention to ignite a fresh “culture war” between middle America and east coast liberals by nominating Ms Palin, the evidence in Manchester suggested he has succeeded in spectacular fashion.

“I just do not trust the American people,” said Eleanor Shavell, 58, a computer programmer, who, along with several others, joked she would move to Canada if Mr Obama loses. “I cannot believe that 80 per cent of this country thinks we’re headed in the wrong direction yet 50 per cent are supporting McCain and Palin. I guess it’s like at school, there’s always got to be a bottom 50 per cent.”

New Hampshire is one of the most finely-balanced electoral battlegrounds, with recent polls showing Mr Obama about 3 percentage points ahead. The state narrowly backed George W. Bush in 2000 but swung to John Kerry in 2004. It has the highest proportion of independent voters in the country at 40 per cent and a fiscally conservative, socially liberal tradition that cuts across the conventional left-right divide.

Mr McCain has a history of support in the state, having won its Republican primary this year and in 2000, while Mr Obama lost there to Hillary Clinton. But his choice of a socially conservative running mate could undermine his appeal. “I supported McCain in 2000, but he’s changed,” said Ms Vanbuskirk.

Only four of the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the presidency are up for grabs in New Hampshire but they could prove crucial if the race remains tight.

On the road out of Manchester after the rally came a reminder of how bitter and divisive the race has already become.

A green pick up truck swerved in front of a silver Volvo as one of its passengers made an obscene gesture through an open window. The only obvious provocation was an Obama bumper sticker on the rear of the Volvo.

Ms Shavell had earlier summed up the mutual incomprehension between the opposing camps, declaring: ”It’s as if we live in two different countries”.