The rumors of Hillary Clinton's death has been greatly exaggerated.
        You can't believe a thing you read in the newspapers (or on the blogs) these days.
        The pundits had it all figured out just five days ago, or so they thought. With independents voting in record numbers, once again, New Hampshire, just like Iowa, would fall under the Illinois senator’s column to set the stage for the beginning of the end of Hillary Clinton
        The former first lady would have none of the defeatist talk as she rebounded from a stunning defeat in the Iowa caucuses to nip her chief rival, Barack Obama, in the narrowest of margins. 
        The New York senator didn’t trounce Obama like he did to her in Iowa, but New Hampshire voters, especially women voters, who voted for Clinton in strong numbers, sent a message to the Illinois senator they wanted to embrace a candidate with more substance and a little less rhetoric.
In an exit poll conducted by the Manchester Union, 100 of New Hampshire respondents indicated they were looking for experience in their candidate. So Clinton’s 35 years of experience, which she has championed for so long, finally paid off. The youth movement went out the window, at least for now.
        Not everyone was so willing to write off Clinton after her defeat in Iowa.
        Matthew Baum, professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University,  emailed me shortly after the Iowa caucuses last Friday to say that Clinton still had lots of resources at her disposal, and that the race was far from over. ``She is well positioned to run an aggressive 50-state campaign, Baum wrote, losing in Iowa makes winning in New Hampshire that much more urgent for her.''
        So now an interesting scenario takes place in South Carolina on January 26th, where half the Democratic delegates are African-Americans. Voters there will choose between casting their vote for the first legitimate African-American Democratic candidate, or supporting a candidate, whose husband was thought by many to be America's first black president.
        The plot thickens.
        A CBS poll published just last month showed Obama barely edging Clinton 35% to 34 %, but another slice of the same poll-showed 38 % of voters saying the mere presence of Bill Clinton in the campaign would make them more likely to support Hillary Clinton.
So in addition to Hillary and Barack engaging in combat in the Palmetto State, we might see Bill tangle with Oprah Winfrey to see who really has the most star power.
 
**

        It was interesting to observe just a week ago there was this tidal wave in the presidential landscape. Obama had upset the front runner; ushering in a sharp break from the past. Mike Huckabee, in turn, had earned a resounding upset victory, despite his diminished war chest, and branding himself the ``Unknown Southern Boy'' Five days later, N.H. voters abandoned this U-turn and steered back to the status quo: first electing Clinton, who, at least on the campaign trail, hitched her wagon to the popularity of her husband's policies of the 1990’s; while the Republicans have veered back to a seasoned Washington warhorse and pro-Iraq candidate in John McCain.
        What were N.H. voters telling us last night? Yes, we want change, but let's not crazy.
        Bill  Lucey
        billlucey@bellsouth.net