DES MOINES - Republican senator John McCain and Democrat senator Hillary Clinton got a boost to their campaigns for United States presidential nominations from an influential newspaper, despite setbacks in opinion polls.
The Des Moines Register, Iowa's largest newspaper, endorsed the two candidates for the fast-approaching Iowa caucuses,calling them the best prepared and most tested of the White House contenders.
The paper is an agenda setter in a state where on January 3 voters kick off the state-by-state battle to choose Republican and Democratic candidates in the November 2008 election.
Clinton is embroiled in a tight three-way battle in Iowa with Barack Obama, an Illinois senator, and former North Carolina senator John Edwards, and has seen her once formidable national poll lead slip over the last few weeks.
The Register said Clinton was best prepared of the Democratic candidates to confront the country's challenges.
Meanwhile, the Boston Globe said it would endorse McCain and Obama in the January 8 New Hampshire primary.
McCain has barely competed in Iowa, focusing instead on New Hampshire and other later voting states, and trails badly in the state behind leaders Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, and Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.
