HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – The Hartford Courant on Sunday endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in her bid for the Democratic nomination for president, saying she is more experienced and better prepared than her principal rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

On the eve of her visit to Hartford, Clinton won the endorsement of Connecticut’s largest newspaper, which said the New York senator is ready for a “new and nuanced world.”

“During five years on the Senate Armed Service Committee, Mrs. Clinton has made herself expert in defense, and won praise for it from colleagues and high-ranking military officers,” the Courant said. “She is also a serious and pragmatic student of foreign policy.”

The editorial praised Obama for bringing an “inspiring energy to the contest, a youth-and-vigor excitement reminiscent of John F. Kennedy’s campaign in 1960.”

But Obama lacks the experience Kennedy had, the Courant said.

The Courant said former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards “deserves credit for raising good issues, but his neo-populist attacks on corporate America are not particularly helpful.”

In a recent poll of Connecticut voters, Clinton was preferred by 41 percent of likely Democratic voters, followed by 27 percent for Obama and 9 percent for Edwards.

Democratic and Republican voters in Connecticut go to the polls for their party primaries on Feb. 5.

Clinton is scheduled to attend a town hall meeting Monday about economic issues at The Learning Corridor in Hartford.

AP-ES-01-27-08 1705EST