Bedford – Sen. John McCain would win in a race against Hillary Clinton, ABC political news director Mark Halperin said yesterday in an interview after a talk at the monthly Politics and Eggs breakfast at the Bedford Village Inn.

"I certainly would not rule her out," Halperin said. "I think she's strongly positioned but I would make him a favorite today."

Halperin said McCain and Clinton are the most likely frontrunners in a wide-open race that would include four other viable candidates: John Edwards, Al Gore, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney.

Halperin, who is the lead writer for the widely read news blog the Note, said he thought the race would tilt toward McCain because most of the states have voted the same way in the last few elections.

"I think they would really be fighting it out in places like New Hampshire and Ohio and Florida," Halperin said.

In New Hampshire, Halperin said a Clinton campaign would be a balancing act.

"I think she'll have to try to find a balance between letting New Hampshire voters talk to her, touch her, and feel her the way they want to for every candidate with the reality that she's a former First Lady, she's a . . . senator, she's got security," he said.

Clinton is better positioned to be the nominee, he said, than Obama because she has spent more time planning her candidacy. He said it was too early to even forecast what kind of a campaign Obama would run.

"You know, I think a lot remains to be seen," Halperin said. "Hillary Clinton has been thinking about this for years. Obama has been thinking about it for less than a year probably and the specifics about how he does it are unclear." McCain, meanwhile, has marshaled a solid base of support on the Republican side, according to Halperin. McCain will not be able to consolidate Republicans the way President Bush did, Halperin added, but he will be able to consolidate the party enough to win and has already lined up many of the former Bush campaign donors.

If McCain does not run, Halperin sees a third-party candidacy from billionaire businessman and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg as a distinct possibility.

"I think he'd get in late," Halperin said. "I think his message would be he is a problem-solver who can work with both parties and that he's not owned by special interests because he'll fund his own campaign." Halperin also said that the New Hampshire primary will continue to be a fundamental part of the 2008 campaign, even if challenges from other states threaten to reduce its influence.

"To the extent that other states frontload, it's possible that the national press and candidates could spread out their attention more and hedge their bets a little bit," he said.

"The fewer candidate visits there are compared to last time, the more the primary is undermined to some extent. But I think it's secure in its fundamental place as it's been for the last many cycles."