Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama is said to be more personable and appealing to youth voters, while most analysts say counterpart Hillary Clinton has failed to capture hearts.

CHICAGO (AP):

Barack Obama has social-networking pages online. He visits college campuses, where enthusiastic student groups lobby hard to get their peers involved in politics.

Those are, by now, tried-and-true tactics on the United States presidential campaign trail. But if his win in Iowa's first-in-the-United States (U.S.) statewide presidential contest is any indication, there is more to Obama's popularity among young voters than his ability to simply reach out to them.

"Anyone can show up on MTV and say they appeal to young people. Anyone can have a Facebook page. But none of that is going to get you young people's support. They're smarter than that," said Ganesh Sitaraman, a 25-year-old law student at Harvard University, who co-edited the book Invisible Citizens: Youth Politics After September 11.

What Obama seems to have is an unusual ability to not only engage young voters, but to get them to show up at the polls.

Upending the status quo

He did it when he ran for the U.S. Senate in Illinois in 2004. He did so again in Iowa last Thursday, when people under age 30 represented more than a fifth of the overall vote in that state's presidential caucuses.

Of those, nearly two-thirds said they were looking for change. And of that group, three-quarters supported Obama, according to a poll conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks.

Young voters have shown signs in recent years of wanting to upend the status quo - under 30s were the only age group to cast the majority of their votes for Democrat John Kerry in 2004 - but it has been a while since a candidate has generated this kind of enthusiasm, said Molly Andolina, a political science professor at Chicago's DePaul University who tracks young voters.

She told the story of a student who showed her phrases he had written down from Obama's recent victory speech in Iowa.

"All of them had to do with hope," said Andolina, who believes Obama has struck a chord with young people. "He's been able to capitalise on their yearning to believe in somebody."

At age 46, Obama is closer to their age - ,too young to be part of the Vietnam era and the old-time Washington establishment that has left so many young people disillusioned.

When endorsing Obama and Republican John McCain, college newspapers in Iowa praised both for side-stepping partisan politics.

"Obama grasps the bigger picture," said the endorsement in the Iowa State Daily. "He doesn't seem to be entrenched in a system that only offers pessimism."

He has also been praised for addressing issues important to students - ending the war in Iraq, global warming, accessibility to medical care and making college more affordable all the major Democratic candidates have offered proposals on these issues.

"Young voters feel like these are issues that will land in their laps. They are our problems to solve, not our parents'," said Sujatha Jahagirdar, programme director for Student PIRGs New Voters Project, which has been mobilising young people in Iowa, New Hampshire and beyond.

She noted that Republican Mike Huckabee also has shown a willingness to respond directly to students' questions on such issues as global warming.

At the University of New Hampshire, sophomore Ashley McFarland noted particularly strong campus support for both Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It remains to be seen whether that support will equate to votes in tomorrow's New Hampshire first-in-the-U.S. primary for either candidate.

AP