EXETER, N.H. (AP) – Presidential contender Barack Obama sought Thursday to shore up support among New Hampshire independents, a key bloc that can vote in either party’s presidential primary here and one where he enjoys a slight lead over rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Obama, touting his message of changing Washington, told a round-table of independent voters he would not let his administration’s aides lobby him once they leave, would make government transparent and cut out lobbyists’ influence. Many of the promises were lifted directly from his standard stump speech but tailored to the six independent voters the campaign picked to meet privately with Obama.

The voters asked Obama if he would fight the system and not be corrupted, something he has spent much of his campaign talking about.

“I think they get swallowed up,” said Sallyann Hawko, an independent from Exeter. “I don’t want to say it’s like an Old Boys’ club, but if you go in and your ideas are different … it doesn’t fit in with the people who are running the establishment, you’re that wacky person over there.”

Obama seized the opportunity to emphasize his outsider status, having arrived in Washington only in 2005. He has pivoted his relative lack of experience into a strength.

“Most people come to Washington to serve. They get into politics for all the right reasons. What does happen, though, is people do get sucked into the conventional wisdom,” he said.

Although he didn’t mention chief rival Clinton, his comments challenged the New York senator as an entrenched part of the establishment and an enemy of change.

Clinton leads Obama 38 percent to 26 percent in the latest University of New Hampshire poll conducted for CNN-WMUR. However, Obama posts 33 percent support’ among independents here. Clinton posts 31 percent support among that bloc. Obama now is trying to maintain that slight lead and build support in the campaign’s final weeks.

“Instead of just listening to my rhetoric, I want you to look at my record,” Obama said, pointing to ethics reform legislation in Springfield, Illinois.

“I wasn’t the most popular guy in town, or even my own party,” Obama said.

Obama’s populist rhetoric is aimed to tap into voters’ frustration with the Bush administration and New Hampshire’s skepticism toward Washington. It also echoes the message John Edwards has been hammering at for months and has kept him in a tight race in Iowa and within striking distance here.

“Instead of doing business behind closed doors, we’re going to bring democracy back to the people,” Obama said. “We’re at a moment in our history where there’s not much to like about what’s going on in Washington.”

Later Thursday, Obama planned to attend a house party – closed to reporters – and two meet-the-candidate events on his last trip to New Hampshire before Iowa’s Jan. 3 caucuses.