THE NOTE: Evolve or Die

Jan. 7, 2008 -- MANCHESTER, N.H. --

About that firewall . . . can somebody help us move it -- just by a few weeks?

If New Hampshire isn't quite lost yet for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., it sure looks like it's getting there. After months of witnessing her lead whittle, a series of new polls show her down substantially down post-Iowa, with late-breaking voters joining the party that look like more fun -- and that looks at this moment like it will end later.

The latest WMUR/CNN poll has Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., opening up a 39-29 lead over Clinton in New Hampshire, with Edwards grabbing 16 and Richardson 7. Obama even leads narrowly just among registered Democrats, and his 20-point edge among independents who plan to vote in the Democratic primary sets him up for what could be a wide margin of victory.

His edge is even greater in the USA Today/Gallup Poll out Monday. Clinton strategist Mark Penn wanted to know where the bounce was, and Obama has found it: He is up 13 points in that poll, taken in the first three days after the Iowa caucuses.

This is a particularly worrisome sign for Camp Clinton: "Obama's victory in Iowa has cost Clinton the aura of electability," USA Today's Susan Page writes. "In December, Democrats here said by 47%-26% that she had the best chance of winning in November. Now, by 45%-34% Obama is favored on that point."

A roughly similar dynamic is playing out on the Republican side, where the longtime New Hampshire frontrunner, former governor Mitt Romney, R-Mass., is staying close but definitely lagging behind Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. He's down four in the USA Today/Gallup Poll, and down six in the latest WMUR/CNN numbers.

Romney performed well in the final candidates' forum before New Hampshire, held Sunday night on Fox News Channel. But the exchanges didn't rock the race, and Romney is fiercely managing to recalibrate expectations even as he keeps up his pressure on McCain.

"This is a must-win state for [McCain]," Romney told Politico's Jonathan Martin and Jim VandeHei. Said the man who is (again) spending more money on TV ads than all of his opponents combined, in a state where he owns a vacation home and was governor in a shared media market: "If I can come in a close second, that also says something."

Beyond the fact that nobody will buy another silver as looking like a gold, Romney and Clinton have a similar coaching challenges: They desperately need to slow the clock, and they have no timeouts. Tuesday is their two-minute warning.

Clinton has a newly aggressive campaign tack -- hoping Obama's victory can be staved of by raising a blizzard of question, starting with his voting record, illegal robocalls, and Obama lobbyist/adviser Jim Demers. Her campaign makes valid points in each case, but does anyone think it's going to stop a tidal wave in the final 24 hours?

(She's also going door-to-door and answering plenty of questions now, too -- more than 30 at a single event in Hampton on Sunday, per ABC's Eloise Harper. And if you're a reporter who wants an interview, this may well be your chance.)

The best bet (and surely the hope) is that these efforts could have a cumulative effect by Feb. 5, where enough states vote to effectively settle everything. The calculation (perhaps all they have left): Things will get sane again on Wednesday, after the pace of voting subsides, and Democrats will get resist the notion that two states just chose a nominee in five days' time.

Though they'd never say this, that's also essentially conceding the point that New Hampshire won't have another Clinton "Comeback Kid." Inside the campaign, the hopes are for a second place finish, which could at least allow them to say they did better than their third-place showing in Iowa. (Though it would take some shameless spin to argue that second place is enough to declare victory; yes, Bill pulled it off, but Barack Obama is not Paul Tsongas, and Hillary is a former first lady, not an obscure Arkansas governor.)

"Advisers to Mrs. Clinton were privately looking ahead to the next Democratic contest with delegates at stake, the Nevada caucuses on Jan. 19, in hopes of revitalizing her candidacy," Jeff Zeleny and Patrick Healy write in The New York Times. The campaign "ended up muddling through 48 hours before New Hampshire's primary on Tuesday. Some pleaded to put a negative commercial against Mr. Obama on the air, but senior campaign officials judged there was not enough time for it to have impact. Leaflets criticizing Mr. Obama were mailed instead."

"Hillary Clinton's campaign, anticipating probable defeat here in New Hampshire on January 8, is gearing up for an extended trench-warfare battle against Barack Obama," HuffingtonPost's Tom Edsall reports.

The good news for her: After New Hampshire, she's got the Nevada caucuses Jan. 19 -- where she appears to have the best organization in place. And the next really high-profile, monumentally important Democratic contest isn't until Jan. 26, in South Carolina. It's followed closely by the de facto nationwide primary Feb. 5, super-duper-tornado-tsunami-overall-big-deal Tuesday.

But if New Hampshire brings another loss, Mark Penn cannot be long for this part of the world: "If a campaign doesn't evolve, it's dead," Clinton said Sunday on the trail.

Nobody's fired yet, but . . . "In an unscheduled conference call with senior aides on Sunday morning, Clinton took what her advisers described as an unprecedented level of control over the direction of the daily message -- issuing orders rather than soliciting advice," Anne Kornblut and Shailagh Murray write in The Washington Post. "According to one participant in the call, Clinton did not explicitly relieve any advisers of responsibilities, but she made it clear that she intends to reorient her campaign toward sharpening her differences with Obama on the trail."

That means doing her own dirty work: Campaigning in Nashua, "the senator rattled off a series of charges, rapid fire," per ABC's Kate Snow. "You know, if you give a speech saying you're going to vote against the Patriot Act, and you don't, that's not change," she began, referring to a speech Obama once gave. "If you say that you're going to prevent members of Congress from having lunch with lobbyists sitting down, but they can still have lunch standing up, that's not change."