Massive lead for Clinton as Obama trails in US polls

Hillary Clinton has further extended her lead in the race for the 2008 Democratic nomination, amid fresh evidence that voters see her as more experienced and more competent - especially in the foreign policy field - than her closest rival, Barack Obama.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll yesterday underlined what political pros here have long been saying. The first primary may still be more than five months away, but despite the excitement generated by the youthful Mr Obama among the party's liberal activist base, the nomination as matters stand is Ms Clinton's to lose.

The poll - the first since Ms Clinton's commanding performance in last week's CNN/YouTube debate - shows her ahead of Mr Obama by 43 per cent to 22 per cent, with John Edwards a distant third with 13 per cent. The rest of the field is in single figures.

Compared with the last such poll, Ms Clinton's lead has grown from 14 points in June to 21 points now. The results suggest that ordinary voters agree with her rather than Mr Obama in the row over whether the next president should hold direct and unconditional talks with the leaders of Iran, North Korea and other foes of the US.

After Mr Obama replied to a debate question that he was ready to do so, Ms Clinton called him "irresponsible and frankly naive" - to which the Illinois senator tartly responded that the real show of naivety and irresponsibility was her 2002 Senate vote authorising the Iraq war, which he opposed from the outset.

In a major foreign policy speech here yesterday, Mr Obama tried to repair the damage. He pledged that, if necessary, he would send American troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists without permission from the Islamabad government.

Unless President Pervez Musharraf did more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters, Pakistan would risk invasion by US forces and the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid under an Obama administration.

"Let me make this clear," he told the Woodrow Wilson International Centre. "There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qa'ida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and General Musharraf won't act, we will."

In fact, senior Bush officials in recent weeks have hinted that Washington is considering narrowly targeted strikes against suspected terrorist bases in the remote north-west frontier region of Pakistan where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding. For its part, Congress last week passed legislation linking aid to efforts by General Musharraf to root out al-Qa'ida and Taliban fighters on Pakistani territory. Mr Bush has yet to sign it, however.

In another swipe at Ms Clinton, Mr Obama branded Congress an accomplice in the disastrous war in Iraq, by giving Mr Bush what amounted to a blank cheque to wage it. Thus far she has refused to admit that her 2002 vote was a mistake, instead focusing her criticism on the conduct of war, and suggesting Congress vote to rescind the authority.

For the moment at least, Ms Clinton is in the ascendant. The WSJ/NBC poll found that "her experience and competence" was Ms Clinton's most important asset. Earlier conventional wisdom that while she might win the nomination, she could never win the election is also crumbling. In a hypothetical match up with Rudolph Giuliani, the Republican front-runner, she prevails by 47 per cent to 41 per cent.

Mr Obama and Mr Edwards are pinning their hopes on the initial caucus and primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. In Iowa, Mr Edwards is narrowly ahead, while Mr Obama is in a virtual dead heat with Ms Clinton in New Hampshire and South Carolina.