Candidates try to win over undecided voters

THE tight race between John McCain and Mitt Romney added emphasis to the need to persuade undecided voters and encourage hard-core supporters to turn out today.

Mr Romney scheduled six events, an end-of-the-day rally and a two-minute television ad, while Mr McCain pushed into what he called ‘The Mac Is Back’ bus tour, flanked by dozens of friends and relatives who turned out for the final New Hampshire push.

Optimism mixed with nostalgia as the Arizona senator sought a repeat of his surprise win here during his first White House run eight years ago.

Mr McCain told a couple of hundred sign-toting supporters: “Tomorrow is the day when we will tell the world that New Hampshire again has chosen the next president of the United States.”

Iowa’s GOP winner Mike Huckabee said he wasn’t counting on winning a top spot today. “If we come in anywhere in the third and fourth slot, we’re going to do great.”

Mr Romney’s first stop was the entrance of BAE Systems North America, where he found reporters far outnumbered arriving workers.

He planned to air a two-minute television ad last night, portraying Washington as in need of a president with the business and government background and experience that he has.

“It’s long past time to bring real change to Washington,” he says in the ad. “That’s never going to happen if all we do is send the same people back to Washington to sit in different chairs.”

New Hampshire residents have a history of keeping their own counsel in their first-in-the-nation primary.

Undeclared voters make up the majority of registered voters in the state, and those independents are free to vote in either primary today. Mr Romney aides hoped for a surge in favour of Mr Obama, denying Mr McCain the independent votes that catapulted him past Bush in 2000.

Mr Huckabee — and free pancakes — lured about 400 to tiny Mason yesterday morning. The crowd had to be divided into two seatings to hear him and his campaign sidekick, actor Chuck Norris.