Durham, New Hampshire
After a jarring moment last night where she was booed by sizable crowd of Obama-supporting Democrats, Hillary Clinton got back on the trail this morning at a rather odd venue: a tiny bagel shop next to the University of New Hampshire's Durham campus. About 50 voters have come out to hear her, along with about 80 members of the media.
The bagel shop can't accommodate many voters with so much media there; the university is closed, so there aren't many college students around either. Outside, about two dozen onlookers gather before Clinton arrives, but they seem more like gawkers than supporters. The four dozen people inside are mostly high school-aged kids and parents, with a couple seniors in the crowd as well. Governor Martin O'Malley works the group beforehand, all smiles and magic, despite having possibly been preoccupied by thoughts of the Naval Observatory.
All that aside, the big question is whether or not last night will have any lasting effect on Clinton. It was the first time in 10 years that a Clinton faced public displeasure from the Democratic party faithful (as distinct from the lefty fringe types who hold President Clinton's administration responsible for "war crimes" in Bosnia).
The answer, at least here, is that she's fine. She gave no prepared remarks, instead taking questions from the voters for 55 minutes. She was personable and calm and heavy on policy specifics. She's not in red-meat mode either. She says that she would leave same-sex marriage to the states and allows (albeit indirectly) that embryos are clearly life. She even sounds hopeful when she says that "we may already have moved beyond" the need for embryonic stem-cell research.
In keeping with her penchant for amassing post-facto power in the first Clinton administration, she boasts of having been "part of the domestic policy team and the diplomatic team" in the Clinton White House. She was also "deeply involved" in the Northern Ireland peace process. She says she actually traveled to Ireland to work on that more than her husband did.
The only real change from recent weeks is that she places a slightly greater emphasis on bipartisanship, another pivot in the wake of Iowa. She says that she'll create a bi-partisan Social Security commission, modeled on President Reagan's, and that she wants "to get back to a bi-partisan foreign policy." She doesn't mention which party it is that left the reservation.
Overall, it's a solid, un-panicked performance
That said, the first post-Iowa poll is out from Rasmussen and it has Obama +10 here. The last Rasmussen numbers from December 18 showed Clinton at +3.
The final pre-primary debate is tonight.
