PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- The strain of the past few days finally caught up to Hillary Clinton on Monday.

At a meeting with undecided voters on the New Hampshire seacoast this morning, a red-eyed Clinton battled tears and had to pause to collect herself when a 64-year-old woman asked her how she gets through the day.

"As a woman I know it's hard to get out of the house and get ready," said Maryann Young, a freelance photographer. "My question is very personal: 'How do you do it?. How do you keep upbeat?'"

Clinton, voice breaking, tried to reply. "It's not easy -- it's not," she said. "And I couldn't do it if I didn't passionately believe..."

At this point she stopped, too choked up to continue, as the audience applauded.

"I see what's happening and we have to reverse that," Clinton said, apparently referring to her loss in Iowa and uphill fight here. "Some people think elections are about people -- they're about our country... it's about all of us... It's been difficult and we do it, each one of us because we care about our country."

Again her voiced cracked and she had to stop.

Clinton faces the prospect Tuesday of a second stinging defeat at the hands of Barack Obama, the Illinois senator who scored a surprise victory in Iowa on Thursday.

But earlier, Clinton also vowed, "We're going on," no matter the outcome of Tuesday's primary vote.

With the hours till the polls open growing short, Obama – holding a double-digit lead over Clinton in four new surveys - told supporters, "You're the wave, and I'm riding it."

And he stepped up his own attacks against Clinton, deriding her criticism that Obama offered "false hopes" to the nation with soaring words but little substance.

"False hope, false hope, there's no such thing," Obama told an overflow crowd in Lebanon. "We don't need leaders to tell us what we can't do, we need those who can inspire us to do, to say yes we can, to say we believe. That's what America is looking for right now. That's our message of change."

The campaign is taking its toll on Obama, too, after a compressed calendar hurtled the candidates from Iowa to New Hampshire with barely five days in between. He saw a doctor Sunday about losing his voice, and the doctor's advice was plain: "Shut up," Obama told an audience in Claremont.

That seemed unlikely for any of the candidates, who are crisscrossing the state at a furious pace, mindful that the judgment rendered here tomorrow could propel them toward the White House - or gravely damage their hopes of getting there.

That's particularly true on the Republican side, where Mitt Romney's campaign knows that a second devastating defeat here after Iowa could make it prohibitively difficult for him to chart a path to the nomination.

Romney stepped up his attacks on Sen. John McCain, who has pulled in front of Romney in the new polls, despite Romney's massive investment of time and TV ads in this neighboring state to Massachusetts, where he was governor. He has criticized McCain as fighting tax cuts and being too soft on illegal immigration.

Romney scheduled six events, an end-of-the-day rally and a two-minute television ad, while McCain pushed into what he called "The Mac Is Back" bus tour - seeking to muster the spirit of his surprise 2000 win here.

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

McCain's tone was a bit wistful in Nashua, where he was joined by his wife, Cindy, and two of their daughters. "There's a lot of nostalgia associated with this morning. We've had a great time," he said.

Iowa winner Mike Huckabee also campaigned here, hoping for a third place showing he can take to South Carolina, and former mayor Rudy Giuliani scheduled three town halls meetings for the day hoping to deny Huckabee that spot. Giuliani has slipped into fourth place in the polls here.





By Melissa Mansfield and Glenn Thrush, Newsday, January 7, 2008