Whether they hold huge rallies that look like rock concerts or interact with voters in more intimate settings, Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama follow vastly different campaign styles.
According to some specialists, Obama's second-place finish last week in New Hampshire could be explained by his lack of personal contact with voters in down-to-earth diners and cafes.
With just five days of campaigning left after the gruelling Iowa marathon, the Illinois senator held megarallies in New Hampshire, but did not find time for more intimate talks with voters at cafeteria tables.
Clinton used this more personal setting to shed a few well-publicised tears on the eve of the New Hampshire primary and managed to pull ahead-despite all the polls that predicted her crushing defeat.
On primary day, she arrived before dawn at a polling station and served coffee to her supporters; she did that three times before meeting with voters at a cafe.
"Over the last week I listened to you and in the process I found my own voice," Clinton keeps repeating in the wake of her victory in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, Obama had only one meeting with students on primary day.
"There's nothing more attractive than a face-to-face and a handshake," said a Democratic strategist, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity. Holding big rallies or talking to voters on a more personal level represent "a false choice," he said.
"Hillary doesn't necessarily love people the way Bill does," said the strategist, referring to the candidate's husband, former president Bill Clinton. "Nobody does. But she gets it and works at it." The strategist noted that Obama "can draw a crowd like nobody else, but he also ought to go out there" and meet with individual voters. However, the question remains whether it is more efficient to meet a few hundred people a day on a personal level or to address thousands at a time at rallies.
David Axelrod, a strategist for Obama, said the campaign was determined to let as many voters as possible see the candidate in person. He explained that if a candidate can bring together undecided voters, he can convince them to vote for him. By Tuesday primary evening, the Obama team estimated that some 21,000 people had come to listen to their candidate's speeches in five days of campaigning.
No such figure emerged from the Clinton campaign, whose rallies could never compete in size or enthusiasm with those held by the young senator from Illinois, who at 46 aims to become the first black president of the United States.
Obama begins each rally by working the crowd and shaking hands, but in New Hampshire he often lacked the time for personal contact. And when he made the time, his responses sounded more like speeches than genuine attempts at answering questions. Middlebury College professor Eric Davis has three suggestions for the Obama team.
"You take questions at rallies; you start talking about specific issues, the economy, healthcare, Iraq; you make sure that young people actually come to the polls," Davis said. But he warned that direct contacts will soon lose their importance because after the contests in Nevada and South Carolina, the campaign becomes nation-wide as it approaches February 5, when about 20 states will vote for Democratic and Republican candidates.
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