New Hampshire has warm words for Clinton

New Hampshire has warm words for Clinton
By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in New Hampshire
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: February 11 2007 19:09 | Last updated: February 11 2007 19:09



It is hockey night at Mr Pizza’s in Gorham, New Hampshire, but a handful of couples and a few lone diners sitting around the bar in this popular local spot are talking about the imminent arrival in the granite state of Hillary Clinton, who is making her first visit in more than a decade.

Ed Miars recalls how he spent an hour with Bill Clinton “just shooting the bull” during the campaign of the then-governor of Arkansas, whose second-place New Hampshire finish in the 1992 primary saved his candidacy. Mr Miars, a state representative, does not expect the senator from New York and Democratic presidential front-runner to spend as much time courting New Hampshire voters as her then obscure husband did, but says he thinks she is a “great candidate” and that
A burly veteran of both Gulf wars, named Oscar, says he does not respect Mrs Clinton. “How is she going to control the country if she cannot control her husband?” he quips, before being berated by Lorraine Leclerc, a beautician, who is ecstatic about Mrs Clinton’s run.

“I think she’s going to go the whole way, and I’m not voting for her because she’s a woman. I’m voting for her because she’s smart,” she says as a handful of other women nod their heads in agreement.

To be relevant to the critical and largely independent voters of New Hampshire, traditionally home to the first primary, Mr Miars says Mrs Clinton will have to deliver a message that speaks to the economic hardships of the state’s north, which last year saw its pulp mill shut down and whose citizens are grappling with healthcare costs.

The next morning, in a packed city hall in Berlin, Mrs Clinton tries to do just that, comparing the difficult economic environment to that of areas in her adopted home state of New York. “I’m not going to tell you that we have magically turned things around, but we have made progress,” Mrs Clinton says, before launching into a detailed explanation of a co-operative she helped establish with Ebay that assisted some upstate businesses to “stay rooted” and become part of the global economy.

In this, her first New Hampshire campaign stop, she promises to fix the healthcare crisis, implement a foreign policy that would engage America’s enemies and improve the nation’s standing in the world, and enact a new energy and conservation strategy.

Vows to cut subsidies for Big Oil and her condemnation of “outrageous” CEO pay garner storming applause.

But even those who appear to adore Mrs Clinton take her to task on the biggest issue for many voters: her 2002 vote to authorise President George W. Bush to invade Iraq. In a second stop in Concord that day, after beginning her question with an affirmative “you go girl”, Monique Cesna asks Mrs Clinton to explain the “seeming contradiction” between the vote and her call to end the war.

Dave Tiffany, who claims that a Clinton staff member took away a sign that said “Quit stalling. Bring our troops home”, criticised the senator for not urging Congress to cut off war funding. Unlike her rival, former senator John Edwards, Mrs Clinton has refused to admit her 2002 vote was a mistake and insists it was not meant to give Mr Bush the authority to wage pre-emptive war.

While she admits that some voters’ eyes “glazed over” at attempts by lawmakers to pass a non-binding resolution against Mr Bush’s planned “surge”, Mrs Clinton says it was a first step and had created anxiety in the White House.

Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report, says ultimately Mrs Clinton will be able to take the issue of Iraq “off the table”. The more important question now, he says, is how voters respond to Mrs Clinton, who holds a lead in New Hampshire and national polls.

Candace Landroche, an administrator at a private school who attended Mrs Clinton’s Concord meeting, says the senator has been portrayed as being “tough and hard”, but she found her “warm and sensitive”.

Dick Bennett, who heads a non-partisan polling firm in New Hampshire, says that, barring any big mis-steps, Mrs Clinton’s candidacy is like a “freight train”. “I look at this and think, does Barack Obama know what is going to happen to him?”

Mr Bennett says his research shows Mrs Clinton’s advantage over rivals such as Mr Obama, who last Saturday announced his candidacy, is that voters give the senator a “pass” when it comes to having to prove she is competent and understands America’s problems. “They already believe she knows. She’s married to the guy who has already solved and worked on those problems,” he says.

Indeed, interviews with some who attended the meetings all note that Mrs Clinton’s experience makes her an attractive candidate.

Elizabeth Hess, a clinical psychologist who attended the open meeting in Berlin, says: “[John] Edwards was interesting and Barack I’ve seen on TV. But they are too green.”