The presidential candidates rushed into a final weekend of compressed campaigning here Saturday, clashing with one another as they presented new themes to New Hampshire voters and tried to keep pace with a schedule that left little room for error before the primary on Tuesday.
The day ended with back-to-back, nationally televised Republican and Democratic debates, including a moment when the presidential candidates from both parties shared the stage. It presented the opportunity for a remarkable photograph that showed the 10 Republicans and Democrats shaking hands, embracing and talking as the audience applauded at length at the scene.
Six of the Republicans sat around a table for a 90-minute debate in which the candidates offered a spirited and at times cacophonous reprise of their arguments over the past three months — particularly on immigration.
Reflecting the political dynamics of the moment, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts came under attack from the two rivals who have so complicated his candidacy this week: Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, who defeated him in Iowa on Thursday, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, who has posed a strong challenge to him here.
Mr. McCain asserted that Mr. Romney was distorting his views on illegal immigration. “You can spend your whole fortune on these attack ads, but it still won’t be true,” Mr. McCain said.
Mr. Romney turned to Mr. McCain and said he was correct in saying that Mr. McCain supported allowing amnesty for illegal immigrants through a plan that would allow some of them to become citizens. “That is your plan,” Mr. Romney said, “and that plan in my view is not appropriate.”
The events unfolded across New Hampshire from morning through night as the candidates sought to retool their appeals. The day reflected for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Mr. Romney, the lessons learned from Iowa, as well as the different nature of this state’s electorate. Mr. Romney went through an entire town-hall-style meeting in New Hampshire Saturday morning without once mentioning abortion or gay rights; that kind of omission would have been unheard of in Iowa.
The results in Iowa — and polls in this state — suggested that the Democratic and Republican contests were to a considerable extent two-way races: Mrs. Clinton and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois for the Democrats, and Mr. McCain and Mr. Romney for the Republicans.
So it was that Mr. Obama found Saturday morning a crowd of 2,500 people waiting for him inside — and outside — a gymnasium at North High School in Nashua, where he warned about the danger of partisanship in Washington and urged voters to follow up where Iowa caucusgoers began.
“We started something on Thursday, but it was just the start. It was just the beginning,” Mr. Obama said, speaking over waves of applause. “The assumption is that that the American people will succumb to fear and doubt and will not trust their instincts and will not follow up what we can do.”
He continued, “What we saw during this past week was the American people rising up and saying to each other that we are on the cusp of creating a new majority, a majority that will help us win this nomination, a majority that will help us an election in November.”
“But more importantly,” he said, “a majority that will help us govern in the way that we have not governed in a long time, a majority that will actually deliver on the promises of health care.”
Mrs. Clinton dispensed with her stump speech earlier in the day and, breaking with past practice in Iowa, took extended questions from voters in Penacook, where she offered an “economic action plan” that included help for families facing mortgage foreclosures. Later Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Clinton met with an audience of undecided voters at Bagelry, a student hangout near the University of New Hampshire in Durham, as part of her effort to appeal to young and independent voters — who had flocked to Mr. Obama in Iowa.
Mr. Romney invoked Mr. Obama’s victory speaking to the Iowa Democratic caucuses to a Republican audience Saturday morning as evidence that the nation was looking for change and that Iowans had rejected longtime Washington hands like Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Romney’s main rival here, Mr. McCain.
Mr. Romney warned his audience that unless the Republicans put up a candidate who could counter Mr. Obama’s message of change, “the same thing that happened to Hillary Clinton will happen to our nominee.”
“He just trounced her there because all that experience isn’t what they wanted to hear about — they wanted to see somebody who said they would do something new and change Washington,” Mr. Romney said of Mr. Obama, from Illinois.
“And,” he added, “we cannot afford Barack Obama as the next president. He’s a very nice fellow and he’s a well-spoken fellow, but he’s never done it.”
And Mr. McCain filled the television airwaves here with a sentimental advertisement invoking his victory in New Hampshire’s 2000 Republican primary, declaring, “My friends, it’s a different time, but it’s the same place.”
At noon, he held what his campaign said was his 100th town-hall-style meeting here — Mr. McCain routinely holds meetings with voters on the day of a debate as a warm-up — and gazed at a hall so crowded that people were spilling out the door after the local police barred anyone else from entering.
John Edwards, Democrat of North Carolina, was moving to try to at least make a showing here after coming in second to Mr. Obama in Iowa. On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas was trying to show his strength beyond Iowa, where he won. Mr. Edwards, who appeared to be taking a slightly less aggressive stance than he did when he fumed his way across Iowa, presented himself as the antiestablishment candidate, going up against opponents with more money and celebrity.
“The people of New Hampshire need to hear this message,” Mr. Edwards said. “We’re up against millions and millions and millions of dollars.”
The extent of the transformation of Mr. Romney’s campaign became clear as he appeared Saturday morning with a new banner attached to the wall reading “Washington is Broken.”
Mr. Romney asked his audience at one point, “Is there anybody who agrees with me Washington is badly broken?”
Almost all hands went up.
In an interview with reporters at a home in Bedford, he said, “My message is Washington is broken.” He added: “Senator McCain cannot be the candidate of changing Washington. He is Washington.”
He raised, in the interview and in public appearances, what his aides said would be a central issue they would use against Mr. McCain in the next 72 hours: Mr. McCain’s authorship of legislation that would have given some illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship.
“That is a form of amnesty,” Mr. Romney said. “It’s one more effort to pull the wool over our eyes. It will not fix illegal immigration. I will.”
Although he seemed upbeat and chipper, Mr. Romney, toward the end of his speech, appeared to forget momentarily where he was, seeming to confuse his New Hampshire audience with Iowans — or perhaps what season it was.
“I’m told I have to let you go,” he said. “You’ve got some harvesting to do.”
The land in this state this weekend is frozen and covered with heaps of crusty snow.
Mrs. Clinton, who like Mr. Romney is struggling to recover from her defeat in Iowa, drew a contrast with Mr. Obama in her morning appearance to discuss health care.
“This is one of the issues in this campaign,” Mrs. Clinton said, in Penacook. “One of my leading opponents proposed a plan that doesn’t cover everybody. It’s a mistake on the merits for a Democrat to propose a plan that doesn’t cover everybody, and it’s a mistake politically because it cedes to the Republicans that we can’t do it.”
Mr. Huckabee, who kept a light schedule, seemed to be running against both parties as he tried to build on his Iowa success. He faulted Republicans as failing to understand the plight of families dealing with high gasoline prices and health care costs.
Reporting was contributed by Julie Bosman from Portsmouth; Michael Cooper and Jeff Zeleny from Manchester; Patrick Healy from Penacook; David D. Kirkpatrick from Londonderry; Michael Luo from Derry; and Marc Santora from Peterborough.