Boston Herald Hillary Chabot column

Jan. 30--DES MOINES, Iowa. -- Bernie Sanders' New Hampshire momentum -- combined with a late-breaking email bombshell -- could force Hillary Clinton to write off the Granite State's first-in-the-nation primary in order to salvage her White House bid.

Clinton, who famously came from behind to win New Hampshire in 2008, holds a small lead over Sanders here in Iowa, but the underdog populist continues to outpace her in Granite State polls.

"You never want to show anything other than absolute respect for the voters and the process -- but knowing (Sanders has) gained a lot of momentum, it's a difficult thing to get up every morning and have people telling you he's growing and you're not," said close Clinton family friend Steve Grossman, who will be campaigning for the former secretary of state in New Hampshire tomorrow morning. He indicated that Clinton was looking to play the expectations game in New Hampshire by closing the gap and finishing with a better-than-expected showing.

"You always want some momentum coming out of the primary, but sometimes momentum is about winning and sometimes it's about narrowing the gap and doing better than expected," said Grossman.

The former first lady ramped up her attacks against the Vermont senator at a packed Des Moines rally yesterday, skewering his single-payer health insurance plan as an "idea that will never, ever come to pass."

But her campaign was rocked by news that President Obama's administration deemed 22 of the emails on her home server to be "top secret," and announced it won't release seven email chains to the public because they contain highly classified information.

The neverending email scandal has haunted her campaign for nearly a year, and Republicans pounced on this latest turn of the screw just days before the all-important caucuses.

"With even more emails on her secret server found to contain top secret information, Hillary Clinton has removed all doubt that she cannot be trusted with the presidency," Republican National Committee

Chair Reince Priebus said hours after the late yesterday bad-news dump.

But former Iowa State Sen. Staci Appel, a Clinton supporter, brushed off the new email revelations, saying she still expects a solid win in Iowa.

"What I continue to hear is that she is a very strong leader," said Appel, noting that Clinton sent and received the emails on her basement server before the information was classified.

Tim Hagle, political science professor at the University of Iowa, said the Hawkeye State caucuses are a must-win for Clinton.

"She needs to dig deep and pour it on these last few days in Iowa," Hagle said. "I'm never in favor of skipping states, but clearly if Bernie wins (in New Hampshire), she can say, 'He's from neighboring Vermont, he's practically a second son. It's no big deal.' "

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