US Election Race Hits One-Year Countdown

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071101/pl_afp/usvote20081year_071101141400

US election race hits one-year countdown
by Stephen Collinson
12 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - One year before Americans elect their 44th president, the Democratic race is Hillary Clinton's to lose, Republicans are battling over their party's soul, and an ugly mood is festering among voters.

The campaign, the most protracted, expensive, and potentially historic on record, already seems to have been dragging on for ever.

But a full year of slash and burn campaign ads, multi-million dollar fundraising grabs and hard-knocks politics is ahead, before voters do their civic duty on November 4, 2008.

Clinton, vowing to break America's highest glass ceiling and become the first woman president, leads every important Democratic national and state poll, eight weeks before the first nominating contest -- the Iowa caucuses.

But her top rivals John Edwards and Barack Obama, after months in her shadow, are finally showing signs of life, inciting the first wobbles of her campaign in a bracing presidential debate on Tuesday.

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