Hillary Returns to NH for Obama and Shaheen

Senator Hillary Clinton returned to New Hampshire today to boost support for former Governor Jeanne Shaheen in her effort to unseat Republican Senator John Sununu and also to urge the state that chose her in the primary to vote for the man that defeated her nationally.

With the election finally one week away, the two appeared together in a Dover gymnasium around lunchtime. With the rain and muck coming down, only around 300 came out to see the duo. The room clearly didn’t seem packed, but the mostly middle-aged crowd of women were fervent in their support for Shaheen and respect for Senator Clinton.

Clinton undoubtedly must have felt a twinge or two of what could have been – she had trounced the polls and pundits winning against Obama here in the primaries, but now was stumping for him and a candidate for senate. “New Hampshire has always been a special place in the Clinton household and certainly in my heart,” she said.

Just the other week Sarah Palin had to turn well over a thousand voters away from the Dover Middle School because it was packed to capacity, Obama drew a massive crowd in a spacious Londonderry orchard about a week ago, and McCain just packed the St. Anselm hockey arena. Clinton must have remembered how the crowds here used to be bigger for her and the glossy sign on the podium once bore her name.

Shaheen spoke first sticking to broad talking points that hinged mostly on her promise of changing Washington along with Obama. She touted plans to embrace alternative energy, stem cell research, preventive health care, and to fight corruption. Clinton followed by attacking Bush perhaps more than she did Sununu although she tried to make them appear one-and-the-same quite clearly. She blasted the Republican party for the economy, failure to regulate Wall Street, for helping only the elite, and heralded the need for change even more than she applauded Obama. She praised Shaheen’s policies and character saying, “There isn’t any doubt that Jeanne Shaheen has the experience and values and the know-how.”

Clinton thanked her supporters in the crowd, but said that it was now time to look to November 4th. “I particularly want to ask my supporters, my wonderful supporters who stood with me, you helped us have one of the greatest political comebacks in modern political history. I know how hard you fought for me because I know our victory was won vote by vote, person by person, call by call, door by door and I want to ask all of you who worked so hard for me to work just as hard for the Obama/Biden ticket,” she said to the small but roaring crowd.

She returned in closing to Shaheen, telling the crowd that it wasn’t just the White House that needed to be held by a Democrat, but the Senate too. In her final support of Shaheen she said, “and I have to say, it’s a proven fact that when you need a new direction because you’ve lost your way, ask a woman because men never ask for directions.”