4 lessons from Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire trip

GORHAM, N.H. — There are perks — and some downsides — to running for president as a former first lady and one of the best-known women in the world, and they were on display in New Hampshire over the weekend, as Hillary Clinton marched in an Independence Day parade in this small town in the far northern part of the state, surrounded by a phalanx of Secret Service agents and an impressive media contingent.

A number of her GOP rivals also took part in parades in the Granite State, but New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida mixed freely with the crowd as they walked along the route in Wolfeboro, on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee.

Clinton’s fame as a former first lady and secretary of state is part of why she brings such a sprawling operation with her and why she attracts so much attention. But it’s also a challenge for her in states like Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states in the primary, where voters place high value on face-to-face interaction with candidates.

Here are four takeaways from Clinton’s trip this weekend to the Granite State, her fourth since April.

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Hillary Clinton poses for a selfie with a supporter during a campaign event in Hanover, N.H. (Photo: Dominick Reuter/Reuters)

1. She’s trying to connect.

A standard part of Clinton’s stump speech now is her mother’s story. Dorothy Rodham passed away in 2011, but Clinton now often tells the story of her mother’s abandonment by her parents as a young girl, and how she started working as a housekeeper at age 14.

“She had such a miserable childhood. She was abandoned, neglected, mistreated by her own parents,” Clinton said to about 850 or so supporters and onlookers at Dartmouth College in Hanover on Friday. “I remember asking her, ‘How did you do this? How did you keep your resilience, your belief in the goodness of people and a future that would be better than the past?’”

Clinton recounted her mother’s story of meeting key people during her life who helped her. “Because people believed in her, she was able to believe in me and to give me the great gift of believing in others,” Clinton said.

After her speech at Dartmouth, Clinton made a point of shaking hands with all the people who stayed around afterward. It’s a standard part of campaigning, but Clinton’s staff made sure that the 200 or so people who had stood on stage with her stayed there well after her speech so she could shake their hands after she worked the crowd in front of the stage. As Clinton shook hands and took pictures with fans, close aide Huma Abedin stood nearby, bobbing her head and mouthing the words to a Katy Perry song.

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Clinton speaks during a campaign event in Glen, N.H. (Photo: Dominick Reuter/Reuters)

2. Her campaign is copying the Obama organizing model at rallies.

Just like at the Obama campaign’s rallies, it’s now standard practice at Clinton events for a local organizer — rather than an elected official — to introduce the candidate. On Friday at Dartmouth, a young man named Jacob Smith told his own story of feeling drawn to public service and organizing, and he asked the crowd to sign a card committing to vote and asked those supporting Clinton to sign up to volunteer.

“I know a lot of you are still deciding who to support in this election,” Smith told the crowd. “I’ve had some great conversations today with some of you … We’re looking forward to continuing those conversations.

“We are not taking any vote for granted. We are here to earn every vote,” he said.

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Clinton greets a woman and her dog at an ice cream stand in Lebanon, N.H. (Photo: Dominick Reuter/Reuters)

3. The Bernie Sanders fascination is real, but is as much a protest of her as an endorsement of him.

A lot of people are talking about Sanders here in New Hampshire, and when you mention the Vermont senator’s name to Clinton supporters, it’s clear they’re not taking the liberal independent lightly. At Clinton’s Dartmouth event, there were a few Sanders supporters. One man held up a Sanders sign occasionally, usually when the crowd was applauding something said by Clinton.

Steve McConnell, a 34-year-old high school literature teacher in Hanover, told Yahoo News before the event that he was leaning more toward Sanders than Clinton at the moment. There was no single issue, or even a group of issues, that he said was driving his preference. He talked about Sanders more in terms of his authenticity in contrast with Clinton’s stage-managed, poll-tested appearance.

“The fact that Bernie’s willing to look like he is shows that he’s not all about the outside package rather than trying to look like everybody else,” McConnell said. He lauded Sanders’ “common sense” approach to politics, and said that “everything [Clinton] says and does” seems premeditated.

But when asked if he could see Sanders as the Democratic nominee, able to beat anyone the Republicans nominate, McConnell said, “Probably not.”

Supporting Sanders, for now, is “a way to send a message that the ideas he has aren’t wasted,” McConnell said.

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Clinton walks in the Fourth of July Parade in Gorham, N.H. (Photo: Dominick Reuter/Reuters)

4. Clinton still drives some conservatives crazy.

When Clinton marched in the Fourth of July parade on Saturday in Gorham, 33-year-old corrections officer Jim Jacquier stood along the route with his wife and his young child, holding a sign he had spent some time preparing. It listed nearly a dozen ways in which he thought Clinton had lied or done something wrong. There were references to her role in Benghazi — one of the biggest criticisms that many have of her time as secretary of state — but also unexplained references to her daughter, Chelsea, and to the 9/11 attacks.

“You lied about Chelsea + 9/11,” the sign said. “You lied about Benghazi.”

“I really don’t think that Hillary Clinton is a trustworthy candidate,” Jacquier told Yahoo News.

Clinton was followed along the parade route by a small group of sign holders who were boisterous in their catcalling, and at points along the route she was booed lustily.

At one point, the booing from one man was so loud that one of the aides holding a rope in front of Clinton to keep reporters at bay looked over at another aide holding the other end of the rope, and indicated they should move faster to get Clinton past the booing.

“Doug, faster?” the aide said, and then nodded. “Faster.”