Clinton Wins, Primaries get a bit more interesting.

Her voice, strained by months of constant campaigning is weakened to the point where her victory seems more like a concession. Obama, struggling not to gag on the blackened bile of disappointment at the back of his campaign’s throat due to numerous strategic errors somehow managed to sound more upbeat and positive than she. Every syllable uttered seemed to be an epic struggle and the lines of an excessively long campaign trail permeated the faces of both potential Democratic front runners as the neck and neck race between them came to a close.

Senator Clinton, in the wake of her embarrassing third place finish in Iowa gambled with her public image while concurrently turning up the heat on Obama’s. She capitalized on the fact that while most credit Obama as an excellent orator and a political genius there are some who assert that his campaign is based on style rather than substance. On the campaign trail the word “change” is ubiquitously tossed around to capitalize on the palpable discontent of a generation weary of politics done the same old way. Clinton managed to convince the Democrats in New Hampshire that not only was she an agent of change for the past 35 years but that Obama’s rhetoric while certainly inspired, is ultimately empty as shown by his voting record on the Senate floor.

Obama’s mistake was that he tried to repeat his success in Iowa using a similar strategy. While it was surprising that voter record turnout among people under the age of 30 catapulted him to a decisive victory, his campaign to influence the demographic in smaller college towns and independents in New Hampshire proved to be not as effective as Clinton finally finding a way to humanize her public image, her focusing in Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest city and her constant attacks on Obama’s record of not working for change in regards to the Iraq war. “I listened to you and in the process I found my voice,” she said as she forced the tired lines on her face into what appeared to be a smile.

Obama’s problem in New Hampshire is that he attempted to focus on voters known to be particularly flaky. The districts of college towns were disappointing for him and McCain in his own primary victory managed to split the independents. While there are many who compliment him on his ability to move people with words in his execution that is not how one wins debates and gets voters to the polls.

It all started well enough for the Obama camp. Polls after Iowa showed him with a double digit lead as did early exit polling but as the votes were counted they were proven to be quite inaccurate on the Democrat’s side. Clinton kept a consistent lead over Obama by 3 or 4 points which kept the news wires and networks from declaring a winner until 70% of the precincts reported. The Associated Press was the first declare Clinton the winner followed by CNN, Fox News, Drudge and MSNBC.

Many political analysts predicted that Clinton would have to win New Hampshire to curb Obama’s exponentially increasing momentum to be a serious contender in the later states and her gambles have paid off with a narrow 2 point victory over her closest rival. Neither of them are out of the race by any means and New Hampshire just proved that Democratic voters are pleased with their options and the race will be incredibly close to the very end.