My Words are Flat and Harsh

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) - When you are a candidate for the 2008 presidential race only drawing about 2 percent support in opinion polls, you have to keep telling yourself that the race is still wide open and there is plenty of time to catch up.

That is the position in which Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, a veteran foreign policy heavyweight, finds himself, along with his fellow Democrats New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich , Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel.

All of them are hanging on for dear life to their campaigns, struggling for traction against the party's front-runners -- New York Sen. Hillary Clinton Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

Some people say it is lonely at the top. Well, what about the bottom?

"Folks, I know it's hard and it requires some patience. This thing is wide open," said Biden, who made some forceful comments on Iraq, Iran and Sudan on Sunday at a debate among the Democratic White House contenders.

What about his 2 percent situation? "Our feeling is that as long as Iraq is the number one problem, whether it's New Hampshire or Iowa, we still have a major entree," said Biden's pollster, Celinda Lake.

There were no knockout punches in the debate, but each candidate's strategy was apparent. Clinton, as leader of the pack in the polls and in campaign financing, played it safe, talking of the need for a unified party on Iraq and directing fire at President George W. Bush.

Read full story here.

This political video is a collection of clips that show Kucinich's opposition to the war in Iraq.

Kucinich is not just anti-Iraq war. He's antiwar, period.

Eight Democrats vying for the White House were united Thursday in condemning President Bush's Iraq policy policy, at a presidential campaign debate more notable for the candidates' easy consensus than disagreement.

In the first televised debate of the 2008 campaign, more than 18 months before the November 4, 2008 election, Democrats were strongly critical of the Bush administration for continuing to funnel thousands of US troops and billions of dollars into what they see as a faltering Iraq war effort.

"The American people have said, Republicans and Democrats, that it's time to end this war," said top-tier candidate Senator Barack Obama, who aspires to become the country's first African-American president.

Obama criticized the "disastrous conditions that we've seen on the ground in Iraq."

Equally emphatic was Senator Joseph Biden, who condemned Bush's "fundamentally flawed policy."

"The real question," said Biden, "is are we going to be able to leave Iraq, get our troops out, and leave behind something other than chaos?"

The candidates pressed the case for a dramatic policy change in Iraq, armed with poll results showing a majority of Americans backing the Democratic push for a troop pullout.

Thursday's debate also was seen as a key step for each candidate in helping raise funds and attract staff, in what is becoming the longest and most expensive campaign for the US presidency in history. Read full story here.