The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Des Moines

White House foes renew battle Saturday on multiple fronts, through snow piled prairies and a blizzard of political ads, a tantalizing five days before their fates are first put to voters.

Democrats Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, locked in a cut-throat struggle ahead of Thursday's leadoff Iowa nominating caucuses, are straining to outdo one another with clarion calls for political change.

Republican Mike Huckabee, the come-from-nowhere former Baptist preacher meanwhile talks of triggering a political earthquake in Iowa, while the rival he elbowed out of the lead, Mitt Romney, lashes back.

Senator John McCain is plotting a comeback in his favored stamping ground of New Hampshire, which votes in a primary on January 8, with the Republican race nationally wide open with, unusually, no prohibitive favorite.

A pall meanwhile is still draped over the campaign trail after the murder of ex-Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto, which refocused debate on national security and the experience and knowledge required of a US president.

Candidates will fan out across the rural midwestern state, which despite its sparse population and mostly-white demographics, plays an outsize role in testing and trimming presidential fields due to its first-in-the nation status.

Obama is vowing to redefine embittered US politics and Edwards is on a populist crusade against big business, while Clinton says only she has the top-level Washington experience to get things done.