America:If Hillary Clinton and John McCain become their party's nominees for president, their success may have less to do with anything that happens in the snows of Iowa or New Hampshire than with a tragic event on the streets of Rawalpindi.
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is a potential game-changer in the US presidential campaign, turning attention away from domestic issues and reminding Americans that they live in a dangerous world.
The Pentagon yesterday expressed confidence that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was securely under the control of president Pervez Musharraf, but the scenes of public unrest in Pakistan have left many Americans feeling anxious.
All the candidates sought on Thursday to turn Bhutto's murder to their advantage, but Clinton and McCain have most to gain from a greater focus on foreign policy. Both could claim, not only to know something about Pakistan, but to have known Bhutto personally.
"I have known Benazir Bhutto for a dozen years, and I knew her as a leader, knew her as someone who is willing to take risks to pursue democracy on behalf of the people of Pakistan," said Mrs Clinton, who visited Pakistan with her daughter Chelsea in 1995 and met Bhutto and her children.
Mrs Clinton has been locked for weeks in a struggle with Barack Obama over change and experience, with most voters identifying Obama as more committed to change and Clinton as the more experienced candidate.
In her closing argument to Iowans this week, she has presented herself as a candidate who is ready to be president on day one, prepared to deal with the unexpected as well as the problems Americans are already aware of. "I know from my lifetime of experience you have to be prepared for whatever might happen, and that's particularly true today," she said.
Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod sought to counter her claim to superior experience by pointing out that, unlike her, Obama opposed the Iraq war from the start.
"People need to judge where these candidates were and what they've said and what they've done on these issues. I mean, she was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, which we would submit is one of the reasons why we were diverted from Afghanistan, Pakistan, al-Qaeda - who may have been players in this event today. So that's a judgment she'll have to defend," Axelrod said.
The boost to Clinton could reinforce a slight rebound in Iowa for the former first lady that followed an endorsement she received two weeks ago from the state's most influential newspaper, the Des Moines Register. However, the Iowa caucuses remain impossible to predict because so much depends on each campaign's success in getting its supporters out on the night.
McCain has been gaining ground in New Hampshire in recent weeks. Any event that turns attention away from domestic issues like immigration, on which he is at odds with most Republicans, can only help the Arizona senator.
"My theme has been throughout this campaign that I'm the one with the experience, the knowledge and the judgment. So perhaps it may serve to enhance those credentials to make people understand that I've been to Pakistan, I know Musharraf, I can pick up the phone and call him. I knew Benazir Bhutto," he said.
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who leads the Republican field in Iowa, fuelled doubts about his grasp of foreign policy when he didn't appear to know that Musharraf had lifted martial law in Pakistan.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who is ahead in New Hampshire, sought to play down the importance of foreign policy experience for a prospective president.
"If the answer for leading the country is someone that has a lot of foreign policy experience, we can just go down to the state department and pick up any one of the tens of thousands of people who spent all their life in foreign policy," he said.
For national Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani, the Bhutto killing was an opportunity to remind voters of his role as New York's mayor after the 9/11 attacks, but McCain insisted that Giuliani's experience was confined to post-crisis management.
"It has very little to do with national security issues," McCain said. "I know Musharraf, I can pick the phone and call him. I knew Benazir Bhutto. I know the area. But I hate for anything like this to be the cause of any political gain for anybody."
