Hillary Clinton says that she has been delivering change for years. Mitt Romney claims that he is the only Republican who can achieve change. John Edwards says that he fights for change. Mike Huckabee says that he personifies change.

Suddenly “change” has become the buzzword of the 2008 campaign, a sign of how Barack Obama’s victory over Mrs Clinton in Iowa - built on his message of change – has not only reshaped the Democratic race, but infected the Republican contest too.

Two days before the New Hampshire primaries, the main candidates on both sides were adopting Mr Obama’s message, with the most heated exchanges in appearances across the Granite State focused on who was best able to propel the United States into a new political age.

In perhaps the most brazen attempt to claim the mantle of change, Mr Romney has reinvented his White House campaign after defeat in Iowa by telling New Hampshire voters that he is the Republican equivalent of Mr Obama, a message ridiculed by rivals.

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A race like a crackpot Dynasty

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Mr Romney, who has invested millions of dollars from his own fortune to achieve early victories, desperately needs to win tomorrow’s primary here to keep his campaign afloat, after his damaging second-place finish to Mr Huckabee in Iowa four days ago.

Seeking to become America’s first Mormon president, Mr Romney has dropped large parts of his stump speech and invoked Mr Obama’s victory in Iowa as evidence that the country is looking beyond seasoned Washington politicians such as his main rival in New Hampshire, John McCain.

“My message is: Washington is broken,” Mr Romney said. “Senator McCain cannot be the candidate of changing Washington.” He added that Mr McCain, knowing “the Senate cloakroom better than [Mr Obama] does”, would hinder the Republican cause if Mr Obama won the Democratic nomination. Mr Obama’s win in Iowa showed that voters “want someone from outside Washington to come in and change things”, he said. “I spent my life changing things.”

Mr McCain, 71, heaped scorn on Mr Romney for that argument in a debate on Saturday night. Referring to the former Massachusetts Governor’s reversals on matters such as abortion, gay marriage and gun rights, Mr McCain said: “We disagree on a lot of issues. But I agree you are the candidate of change.”

David Axelrod, Mr Obama’s campaign manager, said of Mr Romney’s new pitch: “I don’t see anything in Governor Romney that would remind me of Senator Obama. It’s flattering when somebody wants to be like you.”

Not to be outdone, however, Mr McCain donned the mantle of change himself. He said that, by pushing for the troop surge in Iraq, he was “responsible for the biggest change that has saved American lives”.

Mr McCain has resurrected his campaign after it fell apart in the summer, and is banking all on victory over Mr Romney in New Hampshire, the scene of his triumph over George W. Bush in the 2000 primary battle. Two weekend polls show the Arizona senator six points clear of Mr Romney, who held commanding leads only last month.

Mr Huckabee, the former Arkansas Governor, is campaigning in New Hampshire but is focusing more on the South Carolina primary on January 19, where he hopes that his brand of evangelical populism will give him a second big win among the Southern state’s religiously conservative Republican voters. In the same way as Mr Obama, Mr Huckabee is arguing that his Iowa victory proves that he is the Republicans’ true bringer of change.

In a Democratic debate on Saturday, the argument over who represented change dominated. John Edwards, who finished second in Iowa, just ahead of Mrs Clinton, joined forces with Mr Obama, asserting that, unlike the former First Lady, both he and Mr Obama were “agents of change”.

“Every time he [Mr Obama] speaks out for change, every time I fight for change, the forces of status quo are going to attack,” Mr Edwards said of Mrs Clinton.

The New York senator responded angrily, in the most heated moment of the night. “I want to make change, but I’ve already made change. I will continue to make change. I’m not just running on a promise of change. I’m running on 35 years of change.”

Earlier in the day, Bill Clinton, working non-stop to save his wife’s campaign, told a crowd in a school gymnasium in Amherst: “She’s a change-maker, the best I ever saw.”

Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton are drawing huge crowds in New Hampshire, and, according to new polls, are in a dead heat. Mr Obama’s Iowa victory has given him a boost of at least six points, enough for him to pull even, but with a sense that he enjoys the greater momentum. He has received the endorsement of Bill Bradley, the former New Jersey senator who challenged Al Gore for the Democratic nomination in 2000, who is well liked by independents in New Hampshire.

Mrs Clinton, chasing young and independent voters, visited Bagelry, a student hangout in Durham, where she abandoned her stump speech and spoke about the changes that she had made for the lives of young people.

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