Sparks Fly In New Hampshire

Democratic And Republican Rivals Trade Jabs As Campaign Moves East

(CBS/AP)  Barack Obama's, an Iowa winner seeking New Hampshire spoils, faced stepped-up criticism Friday from Democratic rivals now doubly determined to block his rise in the 2008 presidential race. Republican Mike Huckabee claimed momentum for a hurried five-day primary campaign.

"This feels good," Obama told cheering supporters after a dark-of-night flight from Iowa, where he trumped John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton in caucuses that provided the first test of the race.

Click here for complete Iowa results.

He said he had no plans to revise a winning campaign, but the same wasn't so for his rivals after an Iowa campaign almost entirely free of harsh criticism.

"The last thing Democrats need is to move quickly through this process ... without taking a hard look at all of this," Clinton said as she arrived in New Hampshire. She said of Obama, the first-term Illinois senator, "It's hard to know exactly where he stands, and people need to ask that."

The former first lady is counting on New Hampshire's famously contrarian electorate to give her a chance and to subject Obama to more thorough scrutiny in than he received in Iowa, reports CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds.

Clinton, the New York senator and former first lady, wound up third in Iowa, and second-place Edwards quickly sought to show her to the sidelines and portray the Democratic race as one between Obama and him.

"Senator Obama has a more philosophical approach, but we're going to give voters in Mew Hampshire a very clear choice between the two candidates who are change candidates," Edwards said on The Early Show.

"They want to have an election, and they want -- they like to shake things up," Edwards added. "I'll fight with everything I've got up here."

"For all the positivity of their victory speeches, Obama, Huckabee and other hopefuls should prepare for negative attacks during the truncated New Hampshire campaign," CBSNews.com senior political editor Vaughn Ververs said.

"If your campaign has suffered a decisive loss and a near must-win contest looming in a matter of days, how should you respond? The lesson plan from campaign 101 class freshman year says the answer is clear - go negative," Ververs said. "Barack Obama, John McCain and, to a lesser extent Mike Huckabee, should expect their opponents to increasingly seek to talk about the 'real differences' between them." (Read more from Ververs in Horserace.)

If the Democratic race appeared ready to turn in a more confrontational direction, the same thing was already under way among Republicans.

"It will be a different race here," vowed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, defeated by Huckabee's low-budget campaign in Iowa and now confronting a challenge from Arizona Sen. John McCain in the New Hampshire primary.

A compressed calendar gave Iowa's losers only five days to readjust.

Back-to-back debates on Saturday night guarantee the candidates free television exposure. But there is little time for them to replenish their treasuries, conduct fresh polling to guide strategic decisions or air new television commercials crafted to sway large numbers of voters - or to dissipate the momentum that Iowa often bestows on caucus winners.

Obama told supporters that if they follow Iowa's lead, "I truly believe that I will be the next president of the United States." As he well knew, New Hampshire frequently does not follow Iowa's lead.

Further complicating the race was the presence of a large bloc of independent voters in New Hampshire.

McCain benefited from their support in 2000 when he won the state's primary, and he is appealing to the same group to vote for him this year.

On the other hand, Obama profited handsomely in Iowa from the presence of thousands of independents who flocked to the Democratic caucuses, and he no sooner arrived in New Hampshire than he was mimicking McCain's appeal. "We need someone who exercises straight talk instead of spin," he said, a play on McCain's penchant for telling voters he'll give them "a little straight talk" even though they may disagree with what he tells them.