Poll: Economy on voters’ minds

WASHINGTON (AP) – Democratic presidential front-runners Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama both promised to help ease the impact of a mortgage crisis that has fueled recession fears, as a new survey showed the economy will be uppermost on voters' minds, trumping the Iraq war and health care.
The poll released last Friday also put Clinton and Republican Arizona senator John McCain ahead of their party rivals nationally following their triumphs in New Hampshire's primary.
The former first lady led the Democrats with 49 percent, followed by Barack Obama with 36 percent and former North Carolina senator John Edwards with 12 percent, according to the CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll.
More than a third of the people polled said the economy will be their main concern when they decide how to vote for president in November, ahead of the Iraq war and health care. Democrats say Clinton has clearer plans than Obama for handling each of those issues.
However, poll results have shifted rapidly over the past few weeks, and Obama picked up a second key endorsement in as many days – Friday, further stren-gthening his stand in a tight race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Both candidates have headed West to drum up support for their campaigns ahead of primaries and caucuses on Feb. 5, when more than 20 states hold primaries or caucuses.
Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady who wants to be the country's first female president, called for Congress to pass an economic stimulus package that could cost as much as $110 billion (euro74 billion) to help low-income families keep their homes, to subsidize heating costs this winter and perhaps refund some taxes.
The Democratic presidential hopeful was on a two-day swing through California, the biggest prize among the more than 20 states who hold primaries or caucuses on Feb. 5.
“ This economy may be working for some people, but it sure isn't working for everybody,'' said Clinton, standing in an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers hall with union members in City of Commerce.
In Las Vegas, Obama told a cheering union hall that he would provide relief for homeowners struggling to make mortgage payments and deliver tax cuts to the middle-class.
“ We're going to put money in the pockets of hardworking Americans who deserve it. That's what I'm fighting for,” Obama told hotel and restaurant workers packed into the steamy union hall of the Culinary Workers Union, Local 226. The Illinois senator said he identified with their economic hardships.
“ I wasn't living large,” he said. “I had an old, beat-up car and had a little, tiny beat-up apartment. I was wearing beat-up clothes. I had holes in the shoes, had holes in my car. You know what I'm talking about.”
The union, the largest in Nevada, sided with Obama tlast week, an endors-ement that boosts his chances against Clinton in the state's Jan. 19 caucuses.
Earlier Friday, Obama, who is vying to become the U.S.'s first black president, secured the endorsement of Arizona's Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, a day after Obama received a needed boost from Sen. John Kerry, the party's 2004 presidential nominee.
Napolitano's endorsement is a major gain for Obama in his race against Clinton. Napolitano, one of several female governors, is the most prominent Democrat in Arizona, which also holds its primary on Feb. 5.
The next race after Nevada is South Carolina, which holds its Democratic primary on Jan. 26, a week after the Republican primary there.
Edwards remains the spoiler in the Democratic race.
Campaigning in his native South Carolina, Edwards told about 100 people at a town hall meeting that, according to some estimates, the U.S. could lose 30 million jobs in the next decade. He reminded the audience that his father and his grandfather worked in textile mills and how the closing of mills devastated small town economies.
“ It's not academic and it's not philosophical. It's very, very personal,” he said.
Edwards won in South Carolina in 2004 and is hoping to rebound in the state's primary.
“ As long as I make it clear that I'm fighting for middle-class families and against entrenched money interests, I think I will run very strong here,” Edwards told The Associated Press.
On the Republican side, McCain campaigned along the state's coastline as the CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll showed him leapfrogging ahead of his rivals with 34 percent in a highly unpredictable race.
Baptist preacher-turned-politician Mike Huckabee followed with 21 percent, Rudy Giuliani had 18 percent, Mitt Romney 14, and Fred Thompson and Ron Paul had 6 and 5 percent respectively.
Nearly half of Republicans said they think McCain will get the Republican nomination. in October nearly the same number predicted it would be Giuliani.
The first three contests of the Republi-can campaign have yielded three different winners: Huckabee, first in the leadoff Iowa caucuses; Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who won in the little-contested Wyoming caucuses; and veteran senator and prisoner of war McCain, triumphant in last Tuesday's fiercely fought New Hampshire primary.
Former New York Mayor Giuliani is looking to the Florida primary on Jan. 29 for his first victory. In a sign of possible money trouble for last year's national front-runner, about a dozen senior Giuliani campaign staffers are forgoing their January paychecks.
Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, who quit his role on the `Law & Order' TV series to enter the race, is counting on South Carolina to remain viable.

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