(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-23 10:21

But he said that Obama may have changed his mind because of his plan to make health care insurance coverage negotiations public.

"I was undecided ... but I really liked what he had to say," Gillenwater said. "I pay for my own health care and it's just hard, it keeps going up each year."

IOWA PAPER BACKS ROMNEY

On the Republican campaign trail, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won a key Iowa endorsement and crisscrossed New Hampshire in a bid to fend off a mounting threat from Arizona Sen. John McCain's surging campaign.

Romney lost the Des Moines Register newspaper endorsement to McCain, but on Saturday he won the backing of the Sioux City Journal.

"Romney combines an outsider's new face with a proven track record of success in both the private and public sectors," the newspaper said in an editorial.

McCain, a 71-year-old former Vietnam prisoner of war who gave George W. Bush a run for his money in the 2000 election, is climbing in polls following a flurry of endorsements.

One New Hampshire survey this week by American Research Group shows him tied with Romney, who has already lost a big lead in Iowa to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

"For Romney right now, the certainty he had about being a front-runner is gone," said Julian Zelizer, a professor of politics at Princeton University. "If Romney loses New Hampshire, his status could fall very quickly. There's a lot at stake right now."

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