Candidates Hope Primaries Point Way to White House

There are only 22 days left. After a year or more in which candidates have criss-crossed the country to make hundreds of speeches, made embarrassing pleas for funds and been force-fed local delicacies, the 2008 presidential election campaign begins in earnest on January 3.

Voters will turn out that night in Iowa, whose caucus provides the first real test of public opinion. The result can make or break campaigns.

With time running out, no candidate has broken free in either the Democratic or Republican campaigns to establish front-runner status. Polls, arriving at the rate of two or three a day, show the race becoming closer, with any one of three Democrats - Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards - potentially winners in Iowa and the next test, New Hampshire on January 8.

The Republican race too has become tighter over the last few weeks, with Mike Huckabee, an outsider, Baptist preacher, former governor of Arkansas and relatively short of funds, now ahead in polls of both Mitt Romney, who has tried to spend his way to power with an expensive and sustained ad campaign, and Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor.

Huckabee, who has the best one liners in the presidential field but is short on foreign policy detail, had not been taken seriously by the US media. The latest poll has him on 32% to Romney's 20% in Iowa, in spite of Romney having outspent him by 20 to 1.

For the first time in 80 years, there is no incumbent in the race, either a sitting president or a vice-president. The openness of the race has attracted a strong field of candidates capable of making history, providing possibly the first woman president or the first African-American.

In spite of an elongated run-up, with campaigning under way for a year or more, this caucus and primary season could be over in a short, month-long burst. The Democratic and Republican nominations are likely to be decided on February 5, Super-Duper Tuesday, when 20 states, including the mega ones, California and New York, vote.

But Iowa and New Hampshire still matter, capable of providing the momentum and media attention that could be decisive on Super-Duper Tuesday.

Each day left is potentially critical as candidates try to locate potential supporters prepared to turn out in what is likely to be a cold January 3 night.

Campaign teams were frustrated today by an ice-storm that brought chaos to the state. Edwards and Huckabee were forced to cancel engagements, as did Bill Clinton campaigning on behalf of his wife.

The campaign teams will be hoping there will be no further stoppages, apart from the short and reluctant break for Christmas. Polls have consistently shown that most voters in the early key states have not yet made up their minds and are unlikely to do so until the final week, or even on the day itself.

It is going to be the most expensive election campaign in history. Both Clinton and Obama have about $100m (£50m) to spend, much of it for the caucuses and primaries, with some of it held in reserve for the presidential contest itself. It will be the first billion-dollar election.

Clinton has faced a surge by Barack Obama since her poor performance in an October 30 debate. He has taken a small lead in Iowa and closed the gap in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The most recent New York Times poll in Iowa had Obama on 30%, Clinton on 26% and John Edwards in close third place, with 22%. . Romney, in an attempt to win back ground lost to Huckabee, today launched the first personal attack advert of the campaign alleging Huckabee is soft on illegal immigration.

At the start of the year, the other Republican front runner, Giuliani, took a look at the fore shorted caucus and primary season and opted for a risky strategy. He reasoned he would virtually ignore the small states such as Iowa and New Hampshire and focus on the big states on Super-Duper Tuesday.

But he is now worried he could be buried by the media attention the winner of the small states will attract and is putting time in, in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

The present spat between Romney and Huckabee could help Giuliani, as the two are from the same wing of the party and could divide their potential vote.

Both Iowa and New Hampshire are capable of producing unpredictable results. John McCain, standing this time round too and with a strong base in New Hampshire, beat George Bush in New Hampshire in 2000 but lost the contest overall, while John Kerry took Iowa and New Hampshire in 2004 to take the Democratic nomination from favorite Howard Dean.

Although many Democrats are hopeful that next year could be their year given the unpopularity of the Iraq war and President George Bush, previous experience has left them wary, especially if the Republican candidate is Giuliani, whose relatively liberal positions on social issues could see him reach out to independents.

The presidential election will be on November 6.